MediaMVP config

[lektrikpuke]

Hi y'all,

I just bought a MediaMVP (I wish I'd read up on everyone's complaints before buying) and found out it won't do what I want it to do. So, I wrote tech support and they suggested SAGE (we can't do it, but you can buy somebody else's software). Okay, enough complaining. Sage is installed with media extender enabled but it can't find my MediaMVP. My config (which may be part of the problem) is 2 ethernet cards, 1 for intranet, to which the MediaMVP is connected, and 1 for internet. I had both cards set statically, but on reading lots of advice on the internet I changed to dynamic (on the intranet). Didn't do any good, and I'm not surprised considering there's no DHCP server. Any way, I've read that there is support for MVP in Sage, but it doesn't work (even following instructions). When I try to configure the Sage software, it keeps trying to use my internet card (I can tell by the IP address it shows). What can I do? Do I have to hook the mediaMVP to my internet connection/router?

[ke6guj]

The easiest was would be to to hook up the MVP to the router. That would give it access to a DHCP server.

There is a way to bind sage to use the intranet IP address for the MVP. But I do think you will need to install a DHCP service into the Sage server, on another computer onthe intranet. You can modify this line, "miniserver/forced_server_ip=1.2.3.4", in sage.properties with the IP address of you intranet NIC.

If you are behind a router, why dual-home the Sage server? DO all the other PC's have to go through the server to get to the internet?

[MeInMaui]

I think your best bet is to connect the MVP to one of the ports on your router.

I was never able to get the MVP to work via a direct crossover cable connection to my PC, though if you put a switch between the MVP and the PC it then works for some reason. No matter how you set it up, the MVP requires a DHCP server to operate. This would either be the one on your router, or you would have to set up a software DHCP server on your PC. Considering all of hte headaches this can generate (been there, done that) I recommend that you connect the MVP through you router. It makes things much simpler. Hope this helps.

Aloha,
Mike

Edit: Dang! Beat to the punch again!

[mayamaniac]

As ke6gui, if you have multiple NIC cards, you can force SageTV to use the correct IP by editing the sage.properties file and adding the IPs to these two lines:

miniserver/forced_server_ip=
miniserver/gateway=

[lektrikpuke]

I entered the fixed ip address in sage properties file, but that didn't seem to work. I did completely uninstall all the mediaMVP software before doing this, though (I saw that I should do that somewhere else). So, then I decided to connect it to the router, and it still didn't work (even though I saw the dhcp server assigned an address to the mediaMVP). I do have one question regarding the router. In my router (linksys nro41) I have UPnP enabled (even though Sage software says it's not), but in order to enable a specifc port, 31099, I have to put in an IP address (it won't let me leave it blank), but how can I put in an IP address if I'm using DHCP? Any more help? I guess I could uninstall everything and start over, but it's starting to look like a no-win situation.

I have 2 cards to separate the intranet and internet, less collisions, more security (I have sharing, etc. turned off on the internet card).

[coryking]

Wait, I'm very confused why you have two cards in your computer. Are both on the same subnet or is one directly connected to the internet somehow?

If they are on the same subnet and same network segment, I'd give 95% that you've found your problem. By having two cards on the same subnet with different IP addresses, all you are doing is confusing the other computers on the network. "Real" servers typically will bond the two ethernet cards so they look like they are a single network card, a process that also requires very specific drivers to do the load balancing.

Unless you have a 100mbit internet connection somehow (like you are in a dorm or something), collisions are not something to worry about. In fact, you will rarely get collisions on modern, switched, full duplex networks anyway.

My trouble shooting steps, in this order, would be:

1) Pull the second nic. You should do this no matter what; all you are doing is causing problems for no gain.
2) Disable all firewall rules on the renamaining NIC. Remember that SageTV listens on a couple of different ports, and the firewall needs to know that it is okay. If it works with the firewall off, you know the rules need to be adjusted.

I'm pretty sure that will fix your problem. If not, we can take it from there.

[lektrikpuke]

Works great now. All I had to do was uninstall and reinstall SageTV software. I guess it had some conflicts with MediaMVP software (which was installed before SageTV). Thanks for everyone's help.