PS3 Media Server - Firewall Setup for Ubuntu 12.04 / Linux

If you've installed PS3 Media Server in Ubuntu, and you're getting the message "No Renderers were Found" and a great big red "X" on the Status tab, give this a try. The most likely issue is your firewall is blocking your server from establishing a connection with your media playback device (e.g. your Playstation 3).

Steps:

1. Open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T)

2. Type the following command:

sudo ufw allow from <your_device's_ip> to any port 5001

This assumes you are using the default PS3 Media Server port of 5001. For example, if your PS3 uses the static IP 192.168.0.100, then do:

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.0.100 to any port 5001

If you aren't using static IPs on your devices but wish to open the server to any device connected to your router/subnet, you can specific a subnet mask, e.g. 192.168.0.1/24. If you're not using Ubuntu but are using iptables with your preferred linux distro, simply add an exception for port 5001, e.g.:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -s <your-device's-ip> -p tcp --dport 5001 -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -A INPUT -s <your-device's-ip> -p udp  --dport 5001 -j ACCEPT

This ought to do the trick.

Ubuntu 12.04 - Hide the Recent Items in the Dash and Stop the Logging!

I really like Ubuntu 12.04. I even like the Unity Desktop (despite the general hatred it seems to attract amongst many users), it works really well on my netbook. However, Ubuntu has a lot of privacy issues, not the least of which is the integration of zeitgeist into Unity.

Here's what I did to get zeitgeist to stop logging. The "Privacy" app under System Settings never seemed to work properly, and clearing the history still left all sorts of information in the log files.

First, remove zeitgeist. I did this with synaptic. Don't remove the related libs, however, as Unity needs them. Restart the system.

Then, kill the running zeitgeist processes:

sudo killall -9 zeitgeist-fts zeitgeist-datahub zeitgeist-daemon

Then, remove the existing logs:

cd $HOME/.local/share/zeitgeist

rm activity*

You can use srm if you feel it is necessary. Restart the system.

Upon restart, Zeitgeist will recreate the log files, albeit they will be essentially empty. Now set them to read-only:

cd $HOME/.local/share/zeitgeist

sudo chmod ugo-w act*

Restart once more.

Once I did all this, the dash did not populate with recently used files, and the zeitgeist logs remained static. YMMV!

Configuring PS3 Media Server with Windows 7 Firewall

If you've installed PS3 Media Server, and you're getting the message "No Renderers were Found" and a great big red "X" on the Status tab, give the following a try. It worked for me.

(NOTE: These instructions are written for those using the Windows 7 Firewall. However, they should work for any other software-based firewall.)

1. Open Windows Firewall control (in Start Menu run box type "WF.msc")

2. You are going to create 2 new rules: 1 inbound and 1 outbound.

3. On the left side, select Inbound Rules. Then, on the right pane, you will see an option for a New Rule. Click it (see below).

4. In the New Inbound Rule Wizard (which should appear), do the following:

• Choose Program and click Next

•  Select This Program Path, and enter the path to javaw.exe on your PC (typically \Program files\x86\java\jre6\bin)

•  Choose Allow the Connection, then Tick Private and Public.

Complete this process by naming the rule something notable (e.g. ! - PS3 Media Server). Repeat the process in Outbound Rules. Now restart PS3 Media Server. Provided everything else is in order, it should now work.

It is important to note that opening javaw.exe to inbound connections from any IP is a security risk. You may wish to limit the scope of these rules to your local subnet. You can do this by double-clicking on the rule, and selecting Scope. Here, you can limit the remote IPs that can connect to javaw.exe to your local subnet (or specific IP addresses, if you choose).