Using WDTV Live to connect remotely to a FTP Server

[biomedica]

Hi everybody,

I have a FTP server where I store some media. I was wondering if there is a way to have my WDTV box connecting to the server and then requesting the file from there directly. Sometimes, the files are zipped in a rar format. Would it be possible to have the box downloading the file and then extracting and play it? Is it possible to connect for example to a Dropbox server as well? Is that too much to ask for the box? Any feedback would be really appreciated.

[KAD]

there's no ftp client available on the WD, at least to my knowledge,

as for other protocol's etc, it's a linux box, so you could use wget or curl to fetch files providing that you know the url

KAD

[recliq]

there's no ftp client available on the WD, at least to my knowledge,

as for other protocol's etc, it's a linux box, so you could use wget or curl to fetch files providing that you know the url

KAD

sure there is!

Code: Select all

# ftp
ftp> help
Commands may be abbreviated.  Commands are:

!               debug           mdir            qc              send
$               dir             mget            sendport        site
account         disconnect      mkdir           put             size
append          exit            mls             pwd             status
ascii           form            mode            quit            struct
bell            get             modtime         quote           system
binary          glob            mput            recv            sunique
bye             hash            newer           reget           tenex
case            help            nmap            rstatus         tick
cd              idle            nlist           rhelp           trace
cdup            image           ntrans          rename          type
chmod           lcd             open            reset           user
close           ls              prompt          restart         umask
cr              macdef          passive         rmdir           verbose
delete          mdelete         proxy           runique         ?
ftp>


...and I guess any other command line FTP client can simply be compiled and packed into an app.bin.

[KAD]

good to know, I thought it was server only

[biomedica]

Great. How easy is to build an app to retrieve the contents of a FTP server?

[KAD]

recliq's point was that the client is already there

it's a cmd line client, so you connect to your WD via telnet/ssh then issue the cmd's you want

KAD

[mad_ady]

curl should be able to get the files needed locally, but needs to be run from the command line.
Alternatively, you can try to xmount your ftp share (ftpfs) and use it as a local storage. However, as far as I know external subtitles don't work in this case.
Also (in theory) you can probably mount rar archives and play the contents on the fly, but mounting is only done via command line, so it's not really user friendly.

Read on the wiki on how to mount ftp shares.