Tutorial: Emby real time monitoring in MacOS

[K22R8CT 24]

I found a little utility to forward my NAS's (linux) inotify messages to a receiver on my Mac (where Emby runs) that triggers FSEvents: https://github.com/mhallin/notify-forwarder

This allows changes on the NAS file system to be picked up in real-time by Emby.

 

Here are some basic instructions:

 

On NAS

# Fetch and build
cd
git clone https://github.com/mhallin/notify-forwarder.git
cd notify-forwarder
make
sudo cp _build/notiify-forwarder /usr/local/bin

# script
sudo emacs /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh

# Paste the following, specifying your own parent directories
# (subdirectory changes are automatically picked up) and the IP of your emby server

#!/bin/bash
until /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder watch -c <ip of emby server> <Full path to NAS media parent directory> <Full path to Mac media parent directory>; do
    echo "notify-forwarder crashed with exit code $?. Restarting..." >&2
    sleep 1
done

# Set permissions
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh

# Add cron entry as quick and dirty startup trigger 
crontab -e

# Paste
@[member="reboot"] /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh

On Mac

# Fetch and build
cd
git clone https://github.com/mhallin/notify-forwarder.git
cd notify-forwarder
make
sudo cp _build/notify-forwarder /usr/local/bin

# script
sudo emacs /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh

# Paste the following

#!/bin/bash
/usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder receive

# Set permissions 
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh

# Create plist startup script substituting your <username>
sudo emacs /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.<username>.notify-forwarder.plist

# Paste the following, again substituting <username>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
      <key>PATH</key>
      <string>/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:</string>
    </dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.<username>.notify-forwarder</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/notify-forwarder.sh</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>    
    <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

# Set permissions, again substituting <username>
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.<username>.notify-forwarder.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.<username>.notify-forwarder.plist

# Load it, again substituting <username>
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.<username>.notify-forwarder.plist

Test It

# Install fswatch (monitoring utility) on your Mac to test
# (I'm using brew)

brew install fswatch

# Run it
fswatch <Full path to Mac media parent directory>

# Touch a file on your NAS and in a short time fswatch should pick it up.
# If it does Emby will (at least the current version)
touch <Full path to NAS media parent directory>/test.txt

Reboot NAS and Mac to confirm scripts run at startup then in Emby reduce the frequency of Scan Media Library to something reasonable.

 

DISCLAIMERS and TO DO

• I can't vouch for the propriety of this utility
• For some reason my Mac script doesn't start on boot, I have to load it manually. If anyone knows why I'd like to know!

Hope this is helpful.

 

EDIT 8/14/19 - Apparently the forwarder (NAS) is slightly buggy and errors out after a while. I've updated the bash script to respawn it when that happens

 

EDIT 8/21/19 - Got script to load at startup via LaunchDaemon

Edited August 21, 2019 by Anon28109

[Luke 37024]

That's great info, thanks !