How to install TVMOBiLi on Western Digital Mybook Live (step by step)

Here is a clean step by step instruction on how to install TVMOBiLi as media server on a Western Digital Mybook Live running debian linux and replace the preinstalled Twonky media server.

Disclaimer: I am not to be held responsible for any damage you may cause your drive while following these instructions. Especially if you are not familiar with Linux, don't enter any commands not listed here while installing the software.

That being said, here goes the how-to:

Step 1 - check your drive is installed right and up to date

Make sure your WD Mybook Live is installed and accessible from the Web interface. The Web interface should show up when you open http://mybooklive.local. If you never installed additional software manually on the drive, update the firmware to the latest version. If you did install software on the drive before, than this how-to is not for you, as you already know what you're doing.

Step 2 - just for windows users

Download PuTTY, an SSH client for Windows PCs. Either the standalone binary (putty.exe) or the Windows installer should be fine.

Step 3 - enable SSH

In order to login to the drive, you have to enable SSH. To do that, open http://mybooklive.local/UI/ssh and check SSH Access. The username and password shows up on the same page.

Step 4 - disable Twonky

Still on the web interface, disable Twonky in Settings:Media. If you change your mind later and want to keep using Twonky, you can come back here and enable it again.

Step 5 - download TVMOBiLi

Go to http://www.tvmobili.com/download.php and download the LINUX PPC DEB INSTALLER form the Devices section. For your convenience, save it to the Public folder on the drive so you can access it easily from the drive.

Step 6 - login to the drive

Open an SSH connection to the drive (mybook.local) and login as root with the password that you obtained in step 3. On a Mac, open Terminal and type:

ssh root@mybooklive.local

On Windows PCs, use Putty. The connection is successful if you end up in a text window with a prompt that says:

MyBookLive:~#

Step 7 - Install TVMOBiLi

Change to the Public folder and look for the installation file you downloaded:

MyBookLive:~# cd /shares/Public

MyBookLive:/shares/Public# ls -l

You should see the file:

-rwxrw-r--  1 nobody              share 9771422 May 28 12:09 tvmobili-all-ppc.deb

Run dpkg -i tvmobili-all-universal.deb to install it:

MyBookLive:/shares/Public# dpkg -i tvmobili-all-ppc.deb

If everything works fine, the installation should end with a line saying:

Starting TVMOBiLi server: tvmobilisvcd.

We are done on the drive, close the Putty window, or type exit to logout.

Step 8 - Configure TVMobiLi

Back on the PC, go to http://mybooklive.local:30888/ to configure TVMOBiLi. All you have to do is go the Settings page, scroll down to folders and click ADD next to MY FOLDERS. You can add the folder you want to be visible on the media server or the whole Public folder if you want to be able to access everything. Remember the shared folders are inside the /shares directory on the drive, so look for them there.

You may also want to open the Transcoding page and turn off transcoding so the drive doesn't try to transcode the videos you are watching.

After the free month, you may need to get a subscription from TVMOBiLi if you use it for more than 10 GB per month.

If you every want to go back toTwonky, just login to the drive with ssh again, remove tvmobili using dpkg -r tvmobili and enable Twonky form the web interface again.