SMB shares in Ubuntu - not working?

[gregoryx 0]

Just brought up an Emby Server in a fresh Lubuntu 16.04 install. Pretty smooth setup. Nice work, folks.

 

Everything seems to work as expected with the exception of attaching to SMB shares directly. 

 

I'm suspecting that my question is answered by this post: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/33136-ubuntu-unable-to-add-movies-to-library/?p=323600 

 

But I'm posting just to see if I missed something somewhere or if there's another way around this. 

 

I got the system up and going by mounting a share, but this won't work with Kodi and other devices, AFAICT. I need the direct paths that will be accessible from other systems, right? 

 

So... since the install wizard /seems/ to think it can access smb shares directly with //servername/share/folder/ but the above post seems to contradict that... any work-around at this point? 

[kjp4756 41]

Mounting the share is the only way on linux.  I don't think mono supports using UNC paths.

 

In the server config page under library, there is something called path substitution.  This is what you want.  My media is mounted under /media.  In path substitution I have /media to \\server\media  

[gregoryx 0]

Cool. That's how I've got it set up. Good to know that's the deal. Might be good to have the Wizard not offer to do something that won't work... but I guess the wizard works with Windows stuff, too? Cool. Thanks. 

[Luke 37065]

the network browser works with windows. in environments where it doesn't work, it might be a good idea to hide it, yes. there is help text above but not everyone will read it.

[gregoryx 0]

I appreciate a good sideways insult as much as the next guy... so I went back to see if I failed to read the warning correctly... 

 

Here's what it says in yellow:

"Network paths can be entered manually in the event the Network button fails to locate your devices. For example, \\server or\\192.168.1.101.

For Linux on Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse, or Ubuntu, you must grant the Emby system user at least read access to your storage locations."

 

Yeah... I /thought/ I'd read and re-read that a dozen times... and it certainly doesn't warn that this will not work on a Linux based system. I sort of thought it was trying to say that I didn't get the rights correct; it doesn't read at all like, "the above described network paths will not work on any Linux-based system" to me. 

 

Just getting cheeky in reply. I'm good with whatever y'all do with it. But if you're slapping the "not everyone will read it" at me, you might want to read it yourself before the cheeky slap. ;-) 

 

On the plus side, since I was just trying to test everything, I just set up mounts and it all worked fine. Just seemed weird that the above described examples didn't work. And then I found the path substitution thing and began to suspect there was a reason it was there. 

 

Cheers! 

[Luke 37065]

Thanks, yes, that can be revised certainly.

[gregoryx 0]

Cheers, Luke. 

 

Good system. Just got the lifetime license. Keep up the good work. 

[Banman910 0]

Hello,

 

I'm having the same problem gregoryx was having.

 

I installed Emby server on Raspberry pi 3 running Ubuntu Mate.  The install went very smoothly but I can't seem to get Emby to see the smb share on my network.  

 

The share folder is mounted on my desktop and can be viewed through the file manager.

 

I tried going to path substitution but I was still getting an error that Emby can't see the folder (sorry I don't have the exact wording, I'm not by that machine right now).

 

I also tried to directly input the folder path but got the same error.  

 

I'm pretty new to Linux so I might be missing something pretty obvious.

 

I appreciate any advice you have.

[gregoryx 0]

Banman910, here's what I'm understanding: the core function/process/system (whatever it's called) that the Linux version of Emby uses is called "mono." It installed as a dependency when I installed Emby. From what I understand, mono doesn't support SMB the way you and were thinking it would. So... the fact that we can get to the shares with UNC maps (\\server\share or smb://server/share) doesn't help mono (and thus Emby) at all.

 

So... back to the standard mount functions in Linux. Plenty of guides on how to do that. 

 

For example, I mapped //unraid1/videos to /media/unraid1videos in fstab. Again... plenty of guides on how to do that. 

 

But to get around this on outside clients, it looks like what Emby does is uses a "path substitution" parameter. In that config, I put in the two above elements. My library is using three separate folders in that same mount (//unraid1/videos/mkv and .../iso and .../ifo) and they all seem to work as expected in a file-location hand-off. So... winning.