Feature-Request: uPNP support

[drdebian]

Ubuntu 8.04 includes a great uPNP server called MediaTomb. Currently, it can't coexist with eBox on the same system due to some mulitcat routing issues. Making this work would be really great for home systems used to store and stream media content to uPNP clients (PS3, xbox360, Rythmbox, etc.).

[javi]

Is the only problem the route you have to add?

We can provide a hook to add custom routers if that works

[x40sw0n]

Could it be something along the lines of this bug report?

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Binary package hint: mediatomb

Currently mediatomb is putting invalid routes in /etc/default/mediatomb. The routes do not need to be there at all and should be removed. The lines I am speaking about are:
/etc/default/mediatomb

ROUTE_ADD="/sbin/route add -net 239.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0"
ROUTE_DEL="/sbin/route del -net 239.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0"

These should be changed to

ROUTE_ADD=""
ROUTE_DEL=""

Since most networks are not 239.* this is definetly not valid.

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This is the multicast line of the mediatomb startup script from what I gather; you could try changing the routes. Also I thought this might be helpful information for the developers so that they know what mediatomb is trying to do and why it might be conflicting.

Let me know because I am VERY interested in making this happen on my own network. For pretty the same reasons (ps3, xbmc etc.) and I have a couple shiny new 1tb sata2 drives to throw everything on as well...
 

[drdebian]

I'm not sure that those routes actually are invalid. You see, 239.0.0.0 is part of the socalled Class D network, which ranges from 224.0.0.0 to 239.0.0.0 and is reserved for multicasting packets, whereas the "normal" networks usually are used for unicasting. For more details, check here: http://www.multicasttech.com/faq/

The point of it all is to enable the media server to send out packets for identical streams only once to each client, instead of having to send them individually to each client when using unicasting. This is helpful if, for example, multiple clients are consuming the same video stream,  thus saving lots of bandwidth by using multicasting.

Anyway, I think the main problem is that the current firewall module has no real concept of multicasting and always blocks it altogether, which inevitably breaks any uPNP functionality.