Building Replacement SageTV Server Question....

[phantomii]

I am in the process of replacing my older SageTV Server with a newer machine with more ram and a much faster processor. Both old and new are Linux Ubuntu servers. This is for a vacation home I have. At that location I have two network tuners connected to the current server with OpenDCT.

I have started building the Server at my main house and am almost done. The SageTV setup in my main house has a different provider and uses a STB with a Hauppauge 1212 for recording encypted channels which the vacation home does not have. I suspect that the server I am building would have built the Wiz.bin and Sage.properties files based on my main house network and tuner setup as would OpenDCT.

I will take the new Server to the vacation home in a few days and wanted to confirm a few things to make the transition as easy as possible. I assume I should do the following:

1. Backup the Wiz.bin and Sage.properties files from the current server
2. Shut the old server down
3. Install and boot the new server
4. Stop OpenDCT and SageTV Services
5. Copy the old Wiz.bin and Sage.properties files to the new server
6. Run the OpenDCT Console function
7. Restart the OpenDCT Service
8. Restart the SageTV service

At this point I assume the new server will look exactly like the old server? Can someone confirm this or if I have missed anything please let me know..... Thanks

[JustFred]

In general, your proposed sequence of events is correct. Yes, copying sage.properties and wiz.bin from the old box to the new box will migrate the full **Sage server software** personality.

I didn't see any indication of what's being used for viewing, but if it's an HD2/300 extender, you'll also want to copy the relevant properties file from SageTv/SageTv/clients.

One possible issue with your network tuners (can't remember exactly). It's possible that the intercommunication between OpenDCT and Sage might not work correctly, due to a mismatch in the port numbers used between Sage and DCT. I don't remember where OpenDCT stores the port numbers it uses to talk to Sage, so you might want to research that.

A couple of other suggestions to make the transition easier:

1) Is there a way to access the existing remote box? If so, remotely copy the 2 sage files to test on the new box in the comfort of your main home. Of course it won't completely work since your main home doesn't have the networked tuner, but you should be able to work out any other surprises.

2) At the vacation home, consider running the old and new boxes in parallel for the short amount of time it takes to get the new box fully functional. It's often helpful to be able to do an A/B comparison of the 2 boxes.

[stuckless]

If both of these servers are linux, I would actually copy the entire /opt/sagetv/server directory from the old to the new. After that, I would install latest sagetv server (if the old isn't running the latest).

The reason for this, is that by copying the entire /opt/sagetv/server you'll all be copying the installed plugins (web server, ui, etc) and the client configurations, and the fanart (if enabled), etc. When you copy just the Sage.properties, you are copying only the configuration (ie, installed plugins, etc), but not the actual plugins themselves.

[peterjb]

Thank you for both the question and responses.. This thread is timely as I'm about to attempt a similar endeavour for my Linux box at both an OS and SageTV level.

In my case, I'm also going to be changing tv tuner access mechanism.. I'm moving from previously using dvbhdhomerun for my DVB-T & DVB-T2 devices to the native hdhomerun support ( which will change all of the tuner id's ).. Most of my setup is already scripted and automated, so running the clean Linux and SageTV install process is dead easy. As I mostly use SageTV as a DVR these days, my key challenges really migrating the references to my existing recordings and favourites. I already have the scn and frq files for the new channel lineups ( where the existing channel numbers and channel names match ) and xmltv configuration setup.

So apart from the Wiz.bin ( and existing recordings ) - Any ideas as to what would be the minimum files I would need to take across from my existing setup?

Thanks

Peter

[phantomii]

Originally Posted by stuckless

If both of these servers are linux, I would actually copy the entire /opt/sagetv/server directory from the old to the new. After that, I would install latest sagetv server (if the old isn't running the latest).

The reason for this, is that by copying the entire /opt/sagetv/server you'll all be copying the installed plugins (web server, ui, etc) and the client configurations, and the fanart (if enabled), etc. When you copy just the Sage.properties, you are copying only the configuration (ie, installed plugins, etc), but not the actual plugins themselves.

Hey Stuckless, I am finally going to do this migration today and just wanted to ask a dumb Linux newb question. Permissions and rights have been my most challenging learning point on Linux. Both machines are at the latest version of sagetv. I ran the script which does everything for you including loading opendct that is in the forums here. do I just copy the entire directory structure over the new clean installed strucutrre or do I delete it first and then copy it over? I assume I should (or may be forced to) do this with sudo and if so will the destination have all the correct rights etc? Thanks for tolerating my lack of knowledge!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by phantomii

Hey Stuckless, I am finally going to do this migration today and just wanted to ask a dumb Linux newb question. Permissions and rights have been my most challenging learning point on Linux. Both machines are at the latest version of sagetv. I ran the script which does everything for you including loading opendct that is in the forums here. do I just copy the entire directory structure over the new clean installed strucutrre or do I delete it first and then copy it over? I assume I should (or may be forced to) do this with sudo and if so will the destination have all the correct rights etc? Thanks for tolerating my lack of knowledge!

Yeah, i would just overwrite. As for permissions. Is you are running sagetv as "sagetv" user, then you will need to make sure that the all permissions for /opt/sagetv/server are owned by "sagetv". If you are running as root, it will have full permissions.

[phantomii]

Hey Stuckless, Thanks for your advise and assistance. Overwriting the entire directory worked out very well and everything came right up.

[sprucesage]

I have a "somewhat" similar question. I had an earlier install of SageTV server V9 on a PC running Windows7Pro on a motherboard with an AMD CPU. I ran and recorded OTA TV fine (using 4 SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuners). I did a new install on a slightly newer PC running Windows7Pro on a motherboard with an Intel CPU. That server (Intel CPU) runs fine for playback of movies and recorded TV shows through two HD300 clients but does not record TV shows even though they appear properly set up as favorites. I have checked the settings in Detailed Setup on both machines and they appear identical. I feel that this must be a simple dumb thing I missed. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Many thanks!

[JustFred]

Posting the sagetv_0.txt logfile would allow others to make a more informed guess.

As mentioned in post #1, the old config can easily be cloned to the new box by simply copying sage.properties (and wiz.bin, if recording history is desired) to the new box. Make sure SageTv (app & service) aren't running at the time of the copy.

Double-check the HDHomerun config, too. Sadly the SiliconDust website no longer hosts their useful setup guide for Sage; attached is the copy I snagged ages ago.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by sprucesage

I have a "somewhat" similar question. I had an earlier install of SageTV server V9 on a PC running Windows7Pro on a motherboard with an AMD CPU. I ran and recorded OTA TV fine (using 4 SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuners). I did a new install on a slightly newer PC running Windows7Pro on a motherboard with an Intel CPU. That server (Intel CPU) runs fine for playback of movies and recorded TV shows through two HD300 clients but does not record TV shows even though they appear properly set up as favorites. I have checked the settings in Detailed Setup on both machines and they appear identical. I feel that this must be a simple dumb thing I missed. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Many thanks!

As what user are you running the service? Are you using network mounts for your recording directory e.g. \\SERVER\Recorded TV? Make sure the user has write access to the recording directory and that if using network mounts you're not running as LocalUser (or whatever the default is--it's been a while since I used Windows).

[sprucesage]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

As what user are you running the service? Are you using network mounts for your recording directory e.g. \\SERVER\Recorded TV? Make sure the user has write access to the recording directory and that if using network mounts you're not running as LocalUser (or whatever the default is--it's been a while since I used Windows).

SageTV opens sleeping in the system tray (so no "service"?) under local administrator rights and is set up to record to a local HDD, just like on my old PC which records as expected. (I am using the old PC to continue recording my Favorites until I can get the new one working.)

[sprucesage]

Originally Posted by JustFred

Posting the sagetv_0.txt logfile would allow others to make a more informed guess.

As mentioned in post #1, the old config can easily be cloned to the new box by simply copying sagetv.properties (and wiz.bin, if recording history is desired) to the new box. Make sure SageTv (app & service) aren't running at the time of the copy.

Double-check the HDHomerun config, too. Sadly the SiliconDust website no longer hosts their useful setup guide for Sage; attached is the copy I snagged ages ago.

MANY THANKS! The applicable setting in HDHomeRun Setup was set to Media Center. I reset it to SageTV and restarted SageTV and now it seems to be recording as intended! I will save that pdf you sent. Like you I keep stuff like that when I come across it and it solves my problem. Lovin' my Sage!