AirPlay server and Time Machine backup on MTK routers (and not only)
The amazing adventures of open source development, or how some programmers, using free software, sabotage the very ideology of open source
A long time ago, having acquired a Hi-Fi system and a modern laptop of a well-known brand, I completely switched to digital sound, and its transmission without wires. And of course in the house there was always a router for “communication with space”, with linux inside. In order not to produce entities, it easily turns into a music box and data storage, but for some reason, users of Apple are unjustly ignored.
There is, for example, almost a penny Xiaomi Mi Wi-Fi Mini router, which, in addition to supporting 2 Wi-Fi ranges, can just as easily master its plans (and any other with source code on the Web).
Almost any USB sound card (should be able to play PCM 44100Hz / 16bit audio) or USB speakers will work on AirPlay on the router. I am using a USB DAC Muse on a PCM2704 connected digital interface with a Yamaha receiver.
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For Time Machine backups, any USB HDD / SSD is suitable, but to be able to recover from a drive connected directly to a Mac, it must be formatted as HFS +. There may be several partitions with different filesystems on the disk.
You will also need the MI-WRT firmware: source repository
The basis was taken by many of the possibly well-known project for ASUS rt-n56u routers , the author of which, using the same Transmission and placing the GPL at the root of the project’s source code, hinders its development by hook or by crook, considering it to be its own.
Currently, MI-WRT implements:
- drivers for working with HFS + partitions
- drivers for USB support for audio cards / speakers / DAC
- AirPlay audio streaming server (shairport-sync 2.8.0)
- AppleShare file server (AFP) (netatalk 3.1.8)
The editor of AiPlay and AFP configuration files is accessible via the WEB interface - the “Administration” section - “Other services”.
The firmware is in development, and the full performance of all functions is not guaranteed, may damage your router, so use at your own risk!
Current issues :
- AirPlay has sound delays when playing video from VLC, VOX also works poorly when switching audio output through it. As a solution for VOX, leave the default output in it, and switch to AirPlay at the system level (System settings - Sound - Output)
- AFP allows you to connect to drives only in guest mode. Since mdns is not used, in order for OS X to see the disk for Time Machine and allow it to be selected as a disk for backup, you must first connect to it in the Finder from the “Go to” menu - “Connect to server”, specifying the address as afp: // router_name_ip. In the future, this disk will be mounted automatically.
If you are the owner of a router on MTK7620, MTK7621 - you can download a ready-made assembly for ASUS RT-N14U, RT-N56U, RT-N56U B1, Xiaomi Mi Mini in the Downloads section of the repository on BitBucket.
Firmware for other supported routers (RT-N65, AC51U, AC54U ...) are available on request.
Suggestions for functionality and error messages are welcome .
PS Installing shairport-sync and netatalk is also possible on other devices through the entware-ng repository
Have a great listening!
A long time ago, having acquired a Hi-Fi system and a modern laptop of a well-known brand, I completely switched to digital sound, and its transmission without wires. And of course in the house there was always a router for “communication with space”, with linux inside. In order not to produce entities, it easily turns into a music box and data storage, but for some reason, users of Apple are unjustly ignored.
There is, for example, almost a penny Xiaomi Mi Wi-Fi Mini router, which, in addition to supporting 2 Wi-Fi ranges, can just as easily master its plans (and any other with source code on the Web).
Almost any USB sound card (should be able to play PCM 44100Hz / 16bit audio) or USB speakers will work on AirPlay on the router. I am using a USB DAC Muse on a PCM2704 connected digital interface with a Yamaha receiver.
')
For Time Machine backups, any USB HDD / SSD is suitable, but to be able to recover from a drive connected directly to a Mac, it must be formatted as HFS +. There may be several partitions with different filesystems on the disk.
You will also need the MI-WRT firmware: source repository
The basis was taken by many of the possibly well-known project for ASUS rt-n56u routers , the author of which, using the same Transmission and placing the GPL at the root of the project’s source code, hinders its development by hook or by crook, considering it to be its own.
Currently, MI-WRT implements:
- drivers for working with HFS + partitions
- drivers for USB support for audio cards / speakers / DAC
- AirPlay audio streaming server (shairport-sync 2.8.0)
- AppleShare file server (AFP) (netatalk 3.1.8)
The editor of AiPlay and AFP configuration files is accessible via the WEB interface - the “Administration” section - “Other services”.
The firmware is in development, and the full performance of all functions is not guaranteed, may damage your router, so use at your own risk!
Current issues :
- AirPlay has sound delays when playing video from VLC, VOX also works poorly when switching audio output through it. As a solution for VOX, leave the default output in it, and switch to AirPlay at the system level (System settings - Sound - Output)
- AFP allows you to connect to drives only in guest mode. Since mdns is not used, in order for OS X to see the disk for Time Machine and allow it to be selected as a disk for backup, you must first connect to it in the Finder from the “Go to” menu - “Connect to server”, specifying the address as afp: // router_name_ip. In the future, this disk will be mounted automatically.
If you are the owner of a router on MTK7620, MTK7621 - you can download a ready-made assembly for ASUS RT-N14U, RT-N56U, RT-N56U B1, Xiaomi Mi Mini in the Downloads section of the repository on BitBucket.
Firmware for other supported routers (RT-N65, AC51U, AC54U ...) are available on request.
Suggestions for functionality and error messages are welcome .
PS Installing shairport-sync and netatalk is also possible on other devices through the entware-ng repository
Have a great listening!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/279369/
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