Access remote USB as local USB
 

Hello:

I've an Avermedia DVB-T, which connect to a remote computer using USB.
The computer where is connected is very slow, so I try to access the remote usb as if it where a local usb.
I've found different solutions as:
- usbredirectserver: But I've not found a usbredirect client. I see it can be used by virtual machines like QEMU, but don't know if there is a program which access the remote usb and offers it to applications as if it were local.
- USB network gateway. But it's no free.
Can any tell an easy way to access remote USB devices as if they were local?

Thanks

You could use NBD (network block device). It won't speed up the USB drive, but you may see faster access with nbd over NFS.

I agree that the base system is still the weakest point. How can one overcome that by further using remote access which will consume more resources?

Thanks for the answer.

I've installed nbd-server and nbd-client and configured server with:
Accessing from client, now I can see:
I've created manually on /dev directories dvb/adapter0.
But if try to connect, I receive a message and nothing happens:
File is not created. If I create a regular file, then I receive:
So, what can I do?

Share the block device for the USB file system instead e.g. /dev/sdb1 instead. Using the /dev/disk/by-uuid/ device symlink might be better. You might want to use udev rules to create and destroy the nbd device on the server side if it is removable.

Look at the simple example at the bottom of the "man 5 nbd-server" man page.
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...-server.5.html

Let us know how well this works. I assume you are trying to use a low power system some place where you can get tv and then moving the use to a different location. I have considered such a plan but never attempted your way.

Hello:

I'd like to come back and put the solution, but go on with questions (I use to put solutions to my questions when I find them).

I've never used nbd-sever or nbd-client so I've installed both packages on the same computer and tried with something simple. Ex: A file containing a disk image. Serve it with nbd-server, access it with nbd-client. I mount it on "/root/dirdisco/mnt" for nbd-server and "/root/dirdisco/mnt2" for nbd-client.

What I've done:
-Created a file for the disk:
- Configured nbd-server to server it. This is the configuration file:

- Started nbd-server
- In the same computer (to be sure there is no problem with nbd-server and nbd-client releases), I've configured nbd-client:

- Started nbd-client
- I can see devices
- Now, I mount the disco.img on directory /root/dirdisco/mnt and /dev/nbd0 on mnt2 as you can see:
- If I write something on mnt, I doesn't appear on mnt2. I've to umount /root/dirdisco/mnt2 and mount it again and files created/deleted are reflected in mnt2. But I've to umount/mount mnt2 to update directory (mount -o remount doesn't update files).

So something is wrong or I don't understand nbd. I've also tried with "sync" command, but files modified on mnt are not reflected on mnt2.

Whats wrong?

Thanks

nbd-server and nbd-client don't work
 

Hello again:

I've repeated the same process, but instead of using raspberrypi with Raspbian, I've used my laptop with OpenSuse 12.2.

I mount the disk image with nbd-server and just from the same computer, I can list it with
Something strange is that Disco1 is listed twice:
Now, I try to connect nbd-server and nbd-client:
But then I can see this error in messages:
And unable to mount /dev/nbd0
Please, can any give me an example of nbd on OpenSuse 12.2 (or raspbian) than works.

Thanks