I've just ordered my Dell receiver and I thought I'd ask a question about server performance:

The server software will work with Windows 2k, ME, or Win98SE. Are there any performance or compatability considerations that would cause one OS to perform better for this purpose?

I intend to have a dedicated mp3 server in the basement, serving to my pc in my office, and the dell in the living room.

-Anthony

I've got no experience with the Receiver server software, but if it runs on Win2k at all, then I'd say use that. The 95/98/Me series of operating systems aren't great for running as 24/7 servers. NT/2k are much more stable in the long run.

The only drawbacks are (a) NT/2k need beefier systems to run properly (more RAM, more speed), and (b) you can't play a lot of the games on NT/2k.

But if you've got a beefy system and you don't care about playing games, then 2k is a much better choice to run a server.

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Tony Fabris

2k is great, noticably better when the server is under high load; note that serving receivers hardly merits a blip on the load chart (eg, streaming to 30+ units constantly *peaks* at 4% usage on a 1GHz PIII, and is more like 1%), but if you're playing doom on your PC, 2k is fairer about giving some CPU to the receiver server process.

The server isn't currently a service under NT/2k though, so you need to be logged in to run it. Service is a wishlist item...

Hugo

The server isn't currently a service under NT/2k though, so you need to be logged in to run it. Service is a wishlist item...

Anyone tried running through SRVANY?

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Tony Fabris

Can you still do SRVANY on Win2k, I have only ever used it on NT.

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/No.341 Empeg Looking to add a DELL Reciever

Can you still do SRVANY on Win2k, I have only ever used it on NT.

Good question, I've never actually used it on 2k either. But it should work, I mean there's plenty of programs that install as services under NT4 that work fine under 2k, so I'd assume the mechanisms didn't change. Would be interesting to try. Anyone got the components necessary to do the test (2k, Srvany, Receiver)?


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Tony Fabris

It'd probably work, but then you lose the UI. We're hoping to separate the UI from the server components, and implement it properly.

Hi,

2k is great, noticably better when the server is under high load; note that serving receivers hardly merits a blip on the load chart (eg, streaming to 30+ units constantly *peaks* at 4% usage on a 1GHz PIII, and is more like 1%), but if you're playing doom on your PC, 2k is fairer about giving some CPU to the receiver server process.

How many MP3's did your Hotel install have online, I seem to have problems with large databases doing odd things.

Regards,


John Lambon
------------------------------------

Only about 1000 (using v1.03).

v1.0 has known problems with large music databases; the next release fixes these and also improves speed quite a bit.

Hugo

It's on the Win2k Resource Kit so it should work.

I plan to test running the receiver software under SRVANY tonight. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Also, has anyone tried this: Using a WOL (Wake on LAn) ethernet card. I want to set the server up in my basement with all the MP3's on a big hard disk. I'd like to keep the thing off using ACPI ( hey, I don't live in California but why waste power) , and have the server power up when I turn on the DAR.

Thanks.

I'm not sure if the Receiver sofware will work with SRVANY because it tries to write to the display. I'd be interested to know if it works.

Interesting idea, the WOL stuff. I don't know if the Receiver sends the correct messages to wake up a LAN card, it would be interesting to find out. If it does work, and if you can get the server working with SRVANY, the only other thing I could see as possibly going wrong with it is this:

Windows NT takes forever to boot up. The Rio Receiver might time out and give up on looking for a server before the server software gets a chance to start.

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Tony Fabris

Wake-On-LAN should work. We wrote the code. We even tested it.

Damn, something else for me to try out now

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/N.341 Empeg 2xDigital Audio Receiver - one Wireless

WOL works like this:

- The server software doesn't let the PC go to sleep when there are DARs powered on (ie, the icon is blue). The screen can go off, and the hdd can spin down though.

- When the last DAR is powered off, the pc is allowed to sleep (NOT hibernate).

- When DARs power on, they send 2 flavours of WOL packet, one suitable for PNA cards and a normal ethernet WOL - to the last known mac address of the server. Note that if you hard power down a DAR (ie remove power altogether), it then doesn't know the mac address of the last server and will most likely fail to wake it.

- The WOL packet brings the server out of sleep and it will serve music to the DAR.

Hugo

My first post to this forum. I just discovered it through a cross-link from a Usenet posting. Very exciting -- people who know the Dell DAR I have. Hi Hugo, Rob and all the people from Empeg and the Empeg forum. My Mark 1 Empeg #00257 is still going strong in my M-class truck. Back to the Audio Receiver ... I've had the Dell 1.03 version software running on a Win2K Pro server with no problems, but all my music is stored on a separate Win2K server which is running 24/7. (The Win2K Pro machine is only turned on when it has to, and mounts the music partition as a share.) I'm finding that the the DAR won't connect to the daemon running on Win2K Server (red flag) even though the daemon can see the DAR (shows its MAC address in the dialog box.) Dell was useless on helping me with this, and until I found this forum I thought I was going to have to put the box in the closet. Do you have any idea why Win2K Pro works as a PC host for the Audio Manager software, but a similarly equipped Win2K server won't connect? Both PCs have static addresses. I've tried re-initializing the box with the on-off-on-off reset, but it doesn't make any difference. Thanks in advance for any relevant information. Once I can get this working on Win2K Server, then I'll work on some more questions and observations. -Gary

-- Gary Goldberg [email protected]
Digital Marketing Inc. Bowie, MD US 301/249-6501

Sounds like some kind of IP addressing or routing issue. Can you describe your network topology in more detail?

Also, are you running any personal firewall software (such as BlackICE) that might be blocking the packets?

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Tony Fabris

I have the Dell software running on Win2k Server ( service pack 1 ), there is not much else running on that PC though, so maybe you have something running on Win2k server ( DHCP server ? ) that is causing a problem. I assume you shut down the audio receiver manager on Win2k Pro before you start it on your Win2k Server ?

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/N.341 Empeg 2xDigital Audio Receiver - one Wireless

Hi Tony. Win2K SP2 server (4U racked dual 550Mhz P3) Win2K SP2 Pro desktop 866 P3 WinMe desktop (wife's) Apple Cube all are attached to Netgear 100baseT hub. Hub connects through house Ethernet (wired whole house 5 years ago during construction) to basement 16port D-Link 100baseT switch, where all the rooms converge. One Cat5 goes to our bedroom, where the Dell DAR box is installed. Another goes to a small bedroom where I have an Apple Airport base station, which connects to my Sony Picturebook notebook. Another wire off the switch goes to a Pipeline 50 for our 144K DSL (all we could get). Every machine in the house has a static IP address with a 28 bit subnet mask. That's pretty much it. The server is locked down, with most services turned off. I should have one, but there is no firewall installed. What Win2K services should be enabled for this to work? Let me know if I can add anything else, and thank you. -Gary

-- Gary Goldberg [email protected]
Digital Marketing Inc. Bowie, MD US 301/249-6501

You running switched 10/100 ethernet ? Maybe the DAR is 10 only ? Do you see the IP address of the DAR in the DAR server running on Win2k Server ? What is it ?

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/N.341 Empeg 2xDigital Audio Receiver - one Wireless

Yeah, that was my first thing, too. Is that hub 100-only, or 10/100 autosensing?

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Tony Fabris

Yeah, the Receiver is 10Mbps-only. But it seems that you've had it working on the same switch, just with the server on a different machine.

When it fails to work, check the error message displayed on the front. It'll tell you which network adapter (ethernet/PNA) it tried to boot from, and whether it got an IP address or not.

If it's attempting to boot from PNA, then there's a link problem. Check this out first.

If it's not getting an IP address, then there's a problem with the DHCP server -- try running your own. The Receiver will work perfectly with the Win2k DHCP server, or with dhcpd on Linux.

If it's getting an IP address, then it's failing to find either the NFS or HTTP server.

If it's finding the NFS server, the logo on the display changes (it acquires an extra dot, IIRC).

If the second kernel finds the NFS server, then the screen changes to display the Audio Receiver logo, and says "Finding music server" in a box.

If it's still not working, I'd suggest getting a network trace and taking a look at it. If it's not obvious, send the trace to me ([email protected]), and I'll take a look at it.




Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

The d-link switch I'm using is a auto-sensing 10/100 type. To
my knowledge the DAR/Rio's have 10/100 LAN adapters.
I do see the MAC address of the DAR in the server, icon and
all. Thanks. -Gary

-- Gary Goldberg [email protected]
Digital Marketing Inc. Bowie, MD US 301/249-6501

and is the address is the same subnet range as the rest of your network address' ?

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/N.341 Empeg 2xDigital Audio Receiver - one Wireless

No, he said he saw the MAC address, not the IP address. The MAC address is the card's low-level serial number.

_________
Tony Fabris

And if you've got a crossover cable, try plugging it straight into the server with the crossover cable and see if it finds it that way.

_________
Tony Fabris

Every machine in the house has a static IP address with a 28 bit subnet mask.

The 28-bit subnet mask might have something to do with it? Also, the server software: Has it been told to assign receivers an address range within that subnet?

That's pretty much it. The server is locked down, with most services turned off.

Could be one of the things you disabled. Are you doing any packet filtering on the server?

Incidentally, for personal firewall software, I highly recommend BlackICE Defender. It'll run on your server just fine.

_________
Tony Fabris

What are you seeing on the front panel of the Receiver?


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

For personal firewall software, I'd recommend a Linux box and ipchains (v2.2)/iptables (v2.4) -- it's not that easy to configure, but it works a treat for me. You could investigate one of the "Linux router on a floppy" solutions if you can spare a P133 or similar.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Doh, I dope slap myself

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Rod, UK Mk2 64gig Red S/N.341 Empeg 2xDigital Audio Receiver - one Wireless

Check out my LRP. This page is pretty out of date computer wise... but the thing's still up on my wall and running, only difference is a new switch instead of the hub. It's had an up time of over a year. all for free!

||| loren |||