Mac mini NAS

This describes how to setup a Mac mini with an external USB drive as a NAS.

Hardware

• Mac mini with Mountain Lion
• Monitor dongle as described here
• WD My Passport 2TB USB drive
• PC/Mac/iPad running a VNC viewer to remotely control the NAS

For initial setup ONLY, a monitor, keyboard and mouse will need to be connected to the Mac

Setup headless server

• Enable screen sharing
  • Preferences -> Internet & Wireless -> Sharing
  • Enable Screen Sharing service
  • Ensure screen sharing is ON
  • Make a note of the address to connect to

• • In the Computer Settings dialog
    • Check both the boxes
    • Enter password to use for connection

• Enable auto-login
  • Preferences -> Personal -> Security & Privacy-> General
  • Ensure Disable automatic login is un-checked

• Disable downloaded from internet warning
  • Start terminal
  • Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
  • Enter the command defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO and press enter

• Disable sleep mode(s)
  • Preferences ->Hardware -> Energy Saver
  • Set both Computer Sleep and Display Sleep to Never

• Restart Mac and ensure it starts up and logs in without user intervention
  • Apple -> Restart

Configure Remote Access

• Install a VNC viewer on the PC/Mac to be used for remote access
  • On Windows suggest RealVNC
  • On Mac suggest Chicken VNC
  • On iPad there is VNC Viewer for £6.99, but this is untested

• Open the VNC client and check connection to the Mac
  • Check the Mac is viewable and controllable from the VNC viewer

Check Operation

• Close VNC viewer (F8 to exit full-screen mode)
• Shutdown the Mac

• Make headless
  • Disconnect monitor, keyboard and mouse from Mac
  • Connect the monitor dongle (described above) to Mac

• Check operation
  • Power up Mac
  • Wait until powered up (after jingle)
  • Connect remotely using VNC viewer as described above

If this can now control Mac then headless operation is correctly setup

Setup Media Server

• Install USB drive
  • Plug in USB drive and wait for it to be detected
  • Format drive for Mac OSX as described here
  • Create a folder called Music on this drive, to store the audio files

• Install Media Server
  • Download Asset UPnP for Mac
  • Open dmg file and drag Asset to Applications

• Add to automatic startup
  • Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Current User -> Login Items
  • Click + and select Applications -> Asset

• Set watched folders
  • Start Asset UPnP
  • Select Configure
  • Add the Music folder on the USB drive
  • Press the Apply button

Final Checks

• Using Kinsky (from any machine on network)
  • Check Asset is listed in the Libraries list
  • Check audio content from USB drive is visible in library

• Restart
  • Restart the Mac
  • Wait for it to fully start up
  • Using Kinsky check that Asset is visible, and audio content shows in library

Add Disk 'No-Sleep' Functionality

To prevent the USB hard drive from spinning down, which can lead to audio dropout, a utility is run once per minute to write (and flush) to the drive

• Install the tick.py script (tick.py) in the root of the USB Drive

#!/usr/bin/python 

import time

f = open( '/Volumes/USBDrive1/timestamp.txt', 'at+' )
f.write( time.asctime( time.localtime() ) + '\n' )
f.close()

• Create the plist file ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.clock.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"    "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">  
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.clock</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Volumes/USBDrive1/tick.py</string>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

• Add this file to the launchctl executor

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.clock.plist