[How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

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rogsf
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[How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by rogsf »

[How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Note: This is for x86 only! Sorry, no ARM solution for now!

Like many folks, I have been trying to find the right/affordable solution to enable Apple iTunes Home Sharing feature on QNAP, so that my Apple TV 2, iPad, and iPhone can stream the music & photos & videos. It’s especially cool that you can use your phone or iPad as a remote control (downloaded the ‘Remote’ App from AppStore) to stream whatever the content to anywhere using Home Sharing and AirPlay features.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do it, and you will probably never see QNAP to implement this Home Sharing feature. Part of the reason is that Apple and Movie/Music studios control how you distribute music to your remote/mobile devices. As of today, you must use your PC or Mac to have iTunes running at all time and turn on Home Sharing feature. I think most of the folks think like me that this is not the ideal situation because it’s really a waste to just use a dedicated PC/Mac to be a iTunes Home Sharing server device.

To do that, Philippe made this possible, kudos to Philippe. He has done a lot of great work packaging VirtualBox 4.0.8 that allows you to run Windows XP virtual machine inside of your QNAP. Note: this is still in beta. But, so far, I haven't found any issues.

1st, this is for x86 only because VirtualBox does not support ARM.

2nd, it’s strongly recommended that you have Dual Core Atom and upgrade QNAP's RAM to 2GB

3rd, go to this thread for instruction on how to install VirtualBox QPKG. http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=255&t=45982

4th, after VirtualBox is successfully installed, now you can add a Virtual Machine by installing WindowsXP using ISO image.

5th, you must use Bridged mode to enjoy all the layer 2 LAN Home Sharing features. Please go to this thread on how to do this. http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=255&t=46682

6th, Optimize your Windows XP to very minimum, so that it can keep both Windows VM CPU and QNAP CPU utilization to relatively low. Google search on how to optimize Windows XP. Since this is my dedicated iTunes Home Sharing server, I turned off firewall, I don’t intend to use this VM to download anything or browse internet or open any email or documents.

7th, install VNC (optional). I find VNC server response faster and smoother than RDP, especially for the mouse. It’s your choice.

8th, install iTunes on your Windows VM. Make sure you have already mapped your Windows VM to QNAP share/Multimedia or your Music folder (Preferably, the mapped Drive letter would match that on your real PC's mapping). Open iTunes, go in to Advance tab under Preference, and tell iTunes's Media Library is not in VM's C drive, but point it to your new mapped QNAP's share/Multimedia folder. Then, close iTunes.

9th, if you have a PC, and if you have been pointing your Media Library to QNAP server, then copy (overwrite) everything (ex: iTunes Music Library.xml, iTunes Library.itl, Album Artwork, etc..) except your music, MP3, Movies, and Podcast (these should be stored in QNAP anyway) into your Windows VM’s My Music/iTunes folder.

10th, now open iTunes in your Windows VM, your iTunes should now see exactly what you saw in your real Windows PC.

11th, turn off Home Sharing in your real Windows PC, and then turn on Home Sharing in your Windows VM.

12th, it will take 1 -3 mins for Apple TV/iPhone to discover there’s a new Home Sharing Library from Windows VM. Now, you can stream music and videos from Windows VM using Home Sharing to your iPhone/iPad/Apple TV 2, and use your iPhone/iPad as the remote control to your Apple TV as to what album streamed to Apple TV with Photo Sharing from iTunes as well for Screen Saver!!!

13th, enjoy! :) :) :)
Last edited by rogsf on Sun Jul 17, 2011 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bob5AD
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by Bob5AD »

Very cool, thanks for this guide.
paladar
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by paladar »

Hi

Great Guide!
I have a TS-412 with a Marvell 6281 1.2GHz CPU. Does it run on this CPU? How can I add memory, since the TS-412 only has 256 MB?
BR Thomas
rogsf
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by rogsf »

paladar wrote:Hi

Great Guide!
I have a TS-412 with a Marvell 6281 1.2GHz CPU. Does it run on this CPU? How can I add memory, since the TS-412 only has 256 MB?
BR Thomas

The Virtual Machine qpkg is for x86 boxes only. Sorry, you won't be able to run VM on your 412.
Mr_SBJ
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by Mr_SBJ »

Couple of questions: Do your drives spindown when running a virtual machine? Are there problems if you set a schedule to only power on during the evenings? Just trying to run a green iTunes machine only when I need it on and not running 24/7. Thanks.
rogsf
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by rogsf »

Mr_SBJ wrote:Couple of questions: Do your drives spindown when running a virtual machine? Are there problems if you set a schedule to only power on during the evenings? Just trying to run a green iTunes machine only when I need it on and not running 24/7. Thanks.
I have the iTunes running all the time whenever QNAP is on, the thing is my habit of listening to iTunes is spontaneous, so I never know which day or what time I want to listen. So, I don't think this will allow the drive to spindown.

If you want to run iTunes whenever you want it, you might want to use an iPhone/Android app. Few iPhone Apps allow you to SSH and run few simple scripts or pre-configured commands so that you can have iTunes running with just few clicks without typing a list of cumbersome commands.

Answer to your 2nd question is I do the same thing to schedule power shutdown every night. Never have any problem to resume from suspense mode.
santo
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by santo »

Hi
Is it now possible to reach the same solution by using the qnap virtualization center instead of installing virtualbox?
In other words: is your setup possible with qnap virualiziation center and how can i make sure the vm starts/resume whenever i start my QnapNas?
Best regards
Santo
rogsf
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by rogsf »

Hi Santo,

Sorry for late reply. This guide was written many years before QNAP Virtualization was available. Back in 2011, QNAP, the company, had no virtualization solution for its customers. Now, with QNAP Virtualization Station, this guide is obviously obsolete. Go ahead stick with QNAP official virtualization solution. It's not bad, and it's officially supported by QNAP.
santo
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by santo »

Ok, thx alot for your Reply rogsf. Did not pay attention this post is "so old".

But i have to make sure the VM is running constantly? Is there a way to "resume" the vm when i use iTunes automatically?
Best regards
Santo
rogsf
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by rogsf »

Hi Santo,

I don't think you can trigger to resume VM by iTunes remotely. You need to have the VM on to be ready anytime to be streamed by iTunes. If you are concerned CPU and RAM usage, you can trim down the unnecessary auto-start services by Windows VM. There are a lot of guides out there to teach you how to disable the auto-start services. You might be surprised that you could turn off nearly 15 to 20+ useless services that are not needed by VM. Also, you can just assign 1 or 2 cores and give 2GB to 3GB or RAM. Hope this helps.
santo
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Re: [How To] Use your QNAP to enable iTunes Home Sharing

Post by santo »

Hi rogsf

Yes that helped alot. thx.
Best regards
Santo
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