Boshdirect

How to Install NewzBook on XBMC Live

NewzBook is an application I wrote to centrally manage my downloads and media. It has integration points with various indexing sites, SABnzbd, media management, etc. I originally designed the application for the Popcorn Hour, but I am now using XBMC again. I personally use the XBMC Live variant, so I’ve written up some instructions so other XBMC Live users could also use my NewzBook app.If you haven’t heard of NewzBook before, I would recommend checking out this thread on the NMT forums which describes what it does… I’ve also attached a few screenshots after the jump below.

2009-11-29_202539

A few more screenshots and then the instructions on how to install NewzBook on XBMC Live…

2009-11-30_1752252009-11-29_194948

Installation Instructions

Install Apache2 — enter the below command and press ‘Y’ when prompted to install the pre-requisites:

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5

Download NewzBook and copy the core files to your home directory

>Note: if you get a message saying wget is not installed, first run ‘sudo apt-get install wget‘

cd ~ wget http://newzbook.googlecode.com/files/newzbook127beta.zip  unzip newzbook127beta.zip  mkdir NewzBook  tar -xvf newzbook127beta.tar -C NewzBook  rm newzbook127beta.tar newzbook127beta.zip

Create a symbolic link to the NewzBook webui folder from the Apache default website.

sudo ln -s ~/NewzBook/webui /var/www/NewzBook 

Note: Apache2 has the concept of sites, which are separate configuration files that Apache2 will read. These are available in/etc/apache2/sites-available. By default, there is one site available called default this is what you will see when you browse to your XBMC machine. The standard configuration for default keeps the content in /var/www. This is where we will create a symbolically linked subfolder for NewzBook.

Make the configuration file writeable:

sudo chmod 777 ~/NewzBook/configuration/config.ini

Verify that apache is running by opening http://YourXBMCIP/

If you don’t see a ‘It Works!’ message then you probably don’t have apache running. You can check by seeing if it’s processes are running (you should see a couple lines with apache started):

ps -eaf | grep apache

Verify that NewzBook is rendering by opening http://YourXBMCIP/NewzBook

Note: If your browser prompts you to download the a file instead of showing you a page, try clearing your browser cache and trying again (or try opening the page with a different browser). If you are still seeing the issue, you may need to install the php5 module, enable it, and restart apache then make sure you clear your browsers cache and refresh the page: 

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5  sudo a2enmod php5  sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Congrats! NewzBook should now be installed. Visit the configuration page to add in your account details and finish the configuration.

OPTIONAL: Enable SABnzbd to be accessed via Apache2

Install the Proxy Module, load it, then reload apache:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-proxy-html sudo a2enmod proxy sudo a2enmod proxy_http sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Open the apache configuration:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Paste in the below content

<Location /sabnzbd="/sabnzbd"> order deny,allow deny from all allow from all ProxyPass http://192.168.1.10:9995/sabnzbd ProxyPassReverse http://192.168.1.10:9995/sabnzbd </Location>

Make sure you update the IP address and port to your own IP address and port (in the above configuration). Save and close (Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X). Restart apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

You should now be able to go to http://yourXBMC/sabnzbd and see your SABnzbd!

Posted

in

by

Josh Lyon

Tags:

, , , , , , , ,

Comments

2 responses to “How to Install NewzBook on XBMC Live”

  1. greg nash Avatar
    greg nash

    i can’t get NewzBook to work. at first i got ‘Forbidden’ so i assumed it wasn’t working, so i went ahead and ran the OPTIONAL part, but now safari won’t connect to the server. when i run sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart i get this:

    * Restarting web server apache2
    Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf:
    Invalid command ‘&lt;Location’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
    …fail!

    apache is still running tho i think as my WebUI transmission server, and squeezebox server still appear

    Reply
  2. josh Avatar
    josh

    The optional step really is optional as all it does it enable you to access your SABnzbd (if you have it installed) from the same port as NewzBook (80). It creates a proxy so that when you make requests at http://yourserver/sabnzbd it will actually grab the content from http://yourserver:sabport/sabnzbd/

    That being said, it looks like my blog converted the < and > symbols into HTML code [code]& gt;[/code] and [code]& lt;[/code]. I’ve fixed the blog article… but you can basically just change your httpd.conf to look like what’s in my blog above.

    What page were you going to that said forbidden? I’m thinking there is probably just a permission error on one of the NewzBook files. You could even run the following command on your NewzBook folder (making sure you change ~/NewzBook to the proper location):
    [code]sudo chmod -r 777 ~/NewzBook[/code]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *