Howto install a KISS DP-588 PC-Link Daemon on the DNS-323

This can be of interest to owners of the KISS DP-558, a DVD and Multimedia Player and Video Recorder formerly from KISS technology, now from LINKSYS: More info

The KISS DP-558 has an internal disk where to store the media, but as many are aware, since the DP-558 has an ethernet connection, normally connected to a home router, it is possible to store the media on a PC and serve the DP-558 through a KiSS PC-Link Daemon that runs on the PC itself.

There are many PC-Link Daemons around, some for Windows and some for Linux.

Having a DNS-323 it makes sense to store the media on it, since space on the integrated disk of the DP-558 is limited (and the disk noisy).

That said, it makes sense to run the PC-Link Daemon on the DNS-323 itself, the main advantage being that you don't need the PC and can switch it off.

I choose a simple and very well written Link Daemon that i got from the following site: http://popies.net/kissd/

Please note that I DIDN't have any intervention on this program. I just copied the source and cross compiled it so that it runs on the DNS-323.

The owner of above site, Stelian Pop, did write the server.

The 'kissd' daemon is statically compiled and it was only tested with DNS-323 firmware version 1.02.

Use an ftp client to ftp to ftp.joaopena.com login as anonymous and download following files:

kiss.sh kissd kissd.conf kissd.md5

Use BINARY mode to download !

The downloaded files must have the same length in bytes as the original ones.

For those that know how to use the md5sum, kissd.md5 is the checksum of kissd, the server.

There is a command line md5sum for windows at:

http://www.etree.org/cgi-bin/counter.cgi/software/md5sum.exe

'kissd.conf' is the configuration file and it essentially points to the directory where your videos are. The lines inside it are valid for me, but you will have to change it to point to the correct place on your DNS-323.

On the kissd.conf above you will see a line like this:

videopath = /mnt/HD_a2/media/video

Now for you, Windows Folks, this is how Linux sees the directory where my videos are.

(/mnt/HD_a2 is the first disk on firmware 1.02 and probably 1.03, but not 1.01, if you have a second disk, it will be /mnt/HD_b2, go figure)

But in Windows you will probably see something like:

\\192.168.1.xxx\Volume_1\media\video

I advise you to stick to Linux, more on that later.

If you edit the above file in Windows, use an editor that can save files the Linux way, that is lines end with LF and not CRLF like in windows.

A good freeware editor that can do that is notepad++ that you can download from the net.

I am not going to explain how to install a fun_plug, since this is handled in other HowTos. If you don't have a working fun_plug, I strongly advise you to install the one from 'fonz', because he sure knows what he is doing and the structured way of his fun_plug simplifies the installation.

You can see a discussion about it here:

http://forum.dsmg600.info/t422-Updated-fun-plug.html

After having above files on your PC we need to transfer them to the correct places on the DNS-323.

Enable the DNS-323 FTP server through the admin pages and set up an ftp user

(Advanced, FTP server, mark Folder root, RW, start server, save settings).

(BTW, here the save settings does not work, each time I reboot I have to do it all again).

Using your FTP client connect to your DNS-323.

You will have to know the IP address of the DNS and user/pass as defined above.

When you connect you should type 'ls' that shows you a directory list. You should see a Volume_1 directory.

Change to that directory (cd Volume_1)

Create a directory at that level:

mkdir lnx_bin

Change permissions:

chmod 777 lnx_bin

(Filenames in Linux are case SENSITIVE ! Lnx_bin is NOT the same as lnx_bin !!!)

Change to that directory:

cd lnx_bin

Transfer kissd and kissd.conf to under lnx_bin:

put kissd
put kissd.conf

Change permissions:

chmod 777 kissd
chmod 777 kissd.conf

If you are using fonz fun_plug, change directory to:

cd /Volume_1/fun_plug.d/start

and transfer kiss.sh:

put kiss.sh

If you want the kiss server to start automatically on reboot, make it executable:

chmod 777 kiss.sh

If you are using another fun_plug, you will need to somewhere insert lines like this:

# Start kiss daemon                                    

if [ -f /mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/kissd ]                                        
    then                                             
        /mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/kissd -dk --config=/mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/kissd.conf
fi   

Now you need to reboot. Or, if you have a telnet server, start kissd manually, as explained at the end of this page.

Oh yes, I forgot: on the DP-558 configuration screen don't forget to put the IP address of your DNS as the server location.

That also means that your DNS-323 should have a fixed IP address.

There is nothing magic about lnx_bin.

If you are comfortable with Linux, you can put them wherever you want, as long as they are on HD_a2, but of course you must revise kiss.sh or the lines above.

The stock kissd daemon expects by default his configuration file to be on /etc, but here it will not work, its flash and will disappear on reboot. Use the –config option to tell kissd where to look for the configuration file.

If kissd doesn't find kissd.conf, it will abort, if it finds one but the contents are pointing to the wrong place, you will get an empty list.

If you installed the fonz fun_plug, you can telnet to the DNS-323 and check on the files by yourself.

In particular you can start the kiss daemon by hand:

/mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/kissd -dk --config=/mnt/HD_a2/lnx_bin/kissd.conf

and check if it is running:

ps

If some of you try to do the above or part of it thru windows, don't forget:

Valid directory names are Linux ones. Text files must end in LF and not CRLF. Linux is very picky with file permissions and they dont correspond to the Windows ones.

I very rarely boot windows, so if someone knows better please add it here.