FEATURE

AZBox ME Receiver Software

AZBox ME
Super Box
Part 3:

Revealing the Secrets of the

Plugin Installation
98 TELE-satellite International The Worlds Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 09-10/2012 www.TELE-satellite.com

step-by-step guide to plugin installation simple addition of new features and functions for the AZBox ME AirPlayer plugin turns your TV into a multimedia center for watching photos with friends seamless integration for smartphones and tablet PCs with the AZBox ME

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FEATURE

AZBox ME Receiver Software

AirPlayer Plugin for the AZBox ME

Vitor Martins Augusto
One of the aces up the sleeve of Linux receivers such as the AZBox ME is the option of installing new plugins and thereby adding new functions and features. Keep reading to find out how. Many Linux distributions come with an integrated download function which allows installation of a range of plugins at the touch of a button on the remote control. A closer look at those download menus, however, reveals that by default the AZBox ME offers only certain plugins for download. Theres a simple reason for that: A lot of plugin servers for Linux receivers dont only host legal OpenSource plugins, but also illegal offerings. Its only logical that the original firmware does not provide links to those servers. What this does not mean, however, is that you cant make use of all the legal plugins hosted on such servers. You only need to know

How to find out the IP Address

1. Need to find out your AZBox MEs IP address? Look it up in the Setup menu. 2. Then select System. 3. From there proceed to the Network sub-menu. 4. And finally choose Adapter Settings to 5. find out the current IP address.

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how to do it, and well show you exactly that with the example of the AirPlayer plugin. This is a great plugin for presenting photos directly on the TV panel from an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The first thing you need (apart from all the hardware, that is) is the plugin itself. As always, a Google search for airplayer is the best starting point and will yield numerous links to the readily compiled plugin. You should, however, make a point of downloading the mipsel version, since this is supported by the AZBox ME processor. For a current version please go to http://code. google.com/p/airplayer/. In addition to the plugin itself you need an FTP client. At our test centre we use FileZilla, which is a fully-fledged FTP client that is not only totally free but also small in size and very capable. Once again, Google will help you find a download link for that software. Finally, we have to establish a direct connection to the AZBox ME via Telnet. For those of you not familiar with Telnet, this is a protocol that allows access to the receiver using command lines. Linux is Unix-based, and with Unix it is customary to work with command lines. Telnet is required for exactly that, since it allows sending command lines from a remote location across a network. Windows operating systems come with a Telnet client right from the start, which can be called up in a DOS window, for example: You only need to press the Windows and R buttons at the same time to start it, and then enter cmd. So lets turn from theory to practice now: In order to install the plugin you first have to copy it to the receiver using FTP. Ideally, the plugin should be placed into the /tmp directory which is used for temporary files (hence the name /tmp) which are not required permanently for the receiver to work. The content of the /tmp directory is deleted every time the receiver starts up, something that is just right for us since the installation file of the plugin will not be required any longer after the plugin is fully installed and thus will not occupy valuable memory capacity. Even though the AZBox ME provides a generous amount of memory there is no reason to be wasteful. In the FTP client of your choice (FileZilla in our test) you then need to enter the IP address of the AZBox ME receiver. If you dont know it or are not 100% sure you can always look it up in the setup menu of the receiver. Simply go to Setup, then select System, followed by Network and finally Adapter Settings. This will gives you the correct IP. If you see 0.0.0.0 this means you first need to go about configuring your local network before you are able to proceed. Apart from an IP address FileZilla requires a username with corresponding password before it will establish an FTP connection. Connection data can be set up permanently or you may choose to use the upper line to create a Quickconnect session. We use this field to enter the IP address of our AZBox ME, root as the username and we leave the password field empty. This should work, unless a password was specifically set by the user via Telnet. This set up should allow us to connect to the AZBox ME and the first thing we will see is the base directory. From here, a double click on tmp will lead us to the /tmp directory, which is right where we belong at this stage. The link section of the FileZilla window displays the directory structure of the PC which means it is possible to drag and drop files from any directory of the PC to the /tmp directory of the receiver. Next, we call up a DOS window on the PC (press the Windows and R buttons at the same time, then enter CMD and press ENTER). We then key in telnet 192.168.1.108, with 192.168.1.108 being the IP of our AZBox ME. The IP of your receiver may of course be different and you always have to use the actual IP address of your AZBox for this procedure to work. What follows next is a request to enter the username (root) and password (press ENTER to leave that field empty) in order to access the home directory. Again, we need to change from there to the /tmp directory, which can easily be done by keying in cd/tmp. To the left of the cursor the currently selected directory is shown and at this stage this should read root@AZBoxHD:/tmp#. Using the command ls calls up a list of all files in the current directory and one of those files should be the installation file of the plugin. You might ask yourself what the *.ipk file extension stands for. IPK means that files of this type are managed by the so-called Itsy Package Management System which makes sure that all files are automatically copied into the correct directory of the AZBox ME. In case runtime libraries are not available the installation routine is interrupted and the system will create a corresponding alert message. In order to install the IPK file on the AZBox the following ipkg command has to be entered: Ipkg install enigma2plugin-extensions-airplayer_0.1.10_mipsel.ipk By the way: Use the TAB key to complete file names in this case you only have to key in ipkg install e and a touch of the TAB key will insert the rest automatically. Once the plugin has been installed it is necessary to re-start the receiver. In most cases it will even suffice to restart the user interface only. At last the time has come to try out the new plugin. And what an awesome plugin it is. Simply take your iOS device (no matter whether its an iPhone, iPod or iPad), open a photo, click on the Airplay icon, select the receiver (AirPlayer E2) and as if by magic the photo will appear on the TV. The same also works for videos, even though at this stage the sound is unfortunately missing. Obviously, your iOS device must use the same WiFi network as your AZBox ME for all this to work, but in most environments this is the case anyway. Thanks to this plugin the AZBox ME can easily become the centre for a slideshow
1. Website for downloading FileZilla, a top-notch FTP client that is available as freeware. 2. The plugin is copied to the AZBox ME with the help of FileZilla. We have chosen Quickconnect and entered the IP address and username in the top line. A password is not required. 3. Then we start a Telnet session in the DOS window. 4. Once again we need to enter the username. And once again a password is not required just press ENTER. 5. We now use the cd command to go into the /tmp directory. With the Is command we can call up all files inside that directory. 6. The ipkg command finally installs the plugin. The install option is also entered.

Downloading and Installing the AirPlayer Plugin and required Tools

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Using iPAD and iPhone with AirPlayer Plugin Using iPAD and iPhone with AirPlayer Plugin
1. If you tap on the shown photo the AirPlay icon appears in the top right corner. Here you select the required AirPlay server that will receive the photo or video. 2. Of course it works just as nicely with the iPhone. 3. If the plugin is installed correctly the AZBox ME will act as AirPlay server.

presentation with friends, where anybody with an iOS device or Android mobile/ tablet can show their pictures and videos on the TV. In a word: brilliant! This example goes to show that manual plugin installation is nothing to be afraid of. There is, however, another option that is even more convenient: All you need to do is copy another file with the extension *.conf into the /etc/opkg directory of the AZBox ME. This CONF file contains information as to where the plugin server is located. This way it even becomes possible to tap into plugin servers of other firmware versions. The *.conf file can be named as you like and consists of a command line with the following format: src/gz openpli-azboxme http://downloads.rsi-images.org/feeds/openpli-2.1/azboxme/azboxme If, for example, you create a text file with this line using Notepad on your PC, save it under test.conf and copy it to the /etc/opkg directory of the AZBox ME using FTP. All of a sudden there will be available many more plugins,

skins, system extension etc. when you press Manage Extensions (red button on the remote) in the Plugin menu. A little bit of patience and some hunting instincts will give you many more plugin and extension servers thanks to Google, and even if a plugin you want to have is not available in any repository you can always decide to install it manually now that you know how to do it. A word of caution: We all now from experience that we sometimes go overboard with software experiments, and AZBox ME plugins are no exception. It may happen that the operating system is damaged and the receiver will not re-start. In such a case renewed flashing of the firmware will quickly get you out of trouble. Owners of the AZBox ME in particular need not worry too much: Their box comes with a switch on the back panel which can always program a working bootloader into the flash memory. For more details about that handy feature see our AZBox ME test report in TELE-satellite 0203/2012. The only thing you have to take very seriously is a backup of all settings, which you should always create before you start experimenting. Now that you know all about FTP it is childs play to copy the entire /etc/tuxbox directory to the PC in order to have a backup of your channels lists. If things go astray on the AZBox ME you only need to copy that directory onto the receiver and all is well and good again. Conclusion: Even all by itself the AZBox ME is a great device. But if you make use of available plugins and system extensions which can be installed manually or from dedicated plugin servers you enter a whole new world of virtually endless possibilities for your AZBox ME.

1. As soon as the AZBox ME has been chosen as AirPlay server the photo on the iPad display will also appear on the TV panel. 2. It does of course also work that way with the iPhone.

Using Custom Plugin-Server

7. The plugin menu does not only give you access to all installed plugins, but theoretically also allows convenient installation of new plugins that are downloaded from a dedicated plugin server. 8. You need to go to the Manage Extension menu item, which can be called up with the red button on your remote control. 9. Now it is possible to manually set up plugin servers. The receiver then checks all these for available files and creates a list with all plugins, skins, channels lists etc. that can be downloaded from those servers. 10. You can select any number of plugins, all of which will be installed or uninstalled automatically at the end of the routine.

Starting the AirPlayer Plugin

3. After successful installation of the AirPlayer plugin and a re-start of the receiver the AirPlayer plugin will appear on the list of available plugins. 4. If you activate the plugin you can initiate the AirPlayer service and also make changes to its settings, if required. 5. Once the plugin indicates that the service is active you may use your iPad or iPhone to send pictures and videos from your mobile device directly to the AZBox ME via your WiFi network, and from the receiver to your TV.

6. The picture that is currently selected is presented on your panel without further ado!

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AZBox SECRETS OVERVIEW

AZBox ME Receiver Software

Revealing the Secrets of the AZBox ME Super Box

Part 1: Blindscan
Read Full Report

www.TELE-satellite.com /12/05/azbox-me

Part 2: Multimedia
Read Full Report

www.TELE-satellite.com /12/07/azbox-me

PluginInstallation
Read Full Report

Part 3:

www.TELE-satellite.com /12/09/azbox-me
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