DLNA needs a network
As you might expect, DLNA hardware is designed to work on a home network. It doesn't matter whether that network is wired or wireless, although with Wi-Fi you'll need to ensure that your network has sufficient bandwidth for what you want to do. We'd recommend M18 Wi-Fi 6 MESH router pair for serious home sharing.
You've probably got DLNA kit in your home already.
There are a lot of DLNA devices out there, and by "a lot" we mean "440 million": that's the installed base of DLNA as of January 2012. DLNA devices include PS3s and home media servers, Windows PCs, Android phones (like the Sony Xperia U) Blu-Ray disc players, tablets, wireless printers, camcorders, flat-screen TVs and routers, and odds are that at least some of the kit in your home is DLNA Certified.
This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions for configuring a DLNA server on the Raspberry Pi 4 2GB motherboard.
What is DLNA?
The Digital Living Network Alliance is a non-profit trade organisation, and it was started by Sony way back in 2003.
The DLNA defines standards that enable devices to share stuff - photos, video, music - with each other, and it has more than 200 members responsible for more than 9,000 different DLNA devices.
DLNA brings all your tech together
DLNA is designed to act as a bridge between your various bits of kit, so you can watch a film from your PC on your big-screen TV, play an MP3 from your smartphone on your stereo, or send shots from the family photo album to your wireless printer via your tablet.
Think of it as a kind of home cloud: it shouldn't matter where your media is or what device you're currently holding; with DLNA, whatever you want should come to wherever you are and whatever you're using.
Power up and get your Raspberry Pi online
Click on the wireless icon then choose the WiFi network name and enter the its secured password.
Open the LXTerminal and update your system
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
That should be enough for the Raspberry Pi preparation.
Verify the presence of the external harddisk drive
sudo fdisk -l
you would expect to see /dev/sda1 at the bottom of the command response.
To install the minidlna server
sudo apt install minidlna
Once the installation process has completed, we can now proceed to configure it for our media folders.
Before we begin this section, you should already have your media set up somewhere. That can be on your Raspberry Pi myCLOUD NAS Server.
Begin modifying the MiniDLNA configuration file by using the following command on your Raspberry Pi:
Find ↡
# * "A" for audio (eg. media_dir=A,/var/lib/minidlna/music)
# * "P" for pictures (eg. media_dir=P,/var/lib/minidlna/pictures)
# * "V" for video (eg. media_dir=V,/var/lib/minidlna/videos)
# * "V" for video (eg. media_dir=V,/var/lib/minidlna/videos)
The format for specifying a media folder is the following:
Media Directory Format ↡
media_dir=[TYPE],[PATH]
For [TYPE], we have three different letters that we can use. Each letter specifies a different media type.
- The letter A for audio files
- P is used to specify pictures
- Finally, V is used for folders containing videos
For example, if we had a folder called /myCLOUD/shared/dlna/ that contained a folder for our music, pictures, and movies, we could add the following into the configuration file:
Example Media Directories ↡
media_dir=A,/myCLOUD/shared/dlna/audio
media_dir=P,/myCLOUD/shared/dlna/pictures
media_dir=V,/myCLOUD/shared/dlna/videos
The next thing we might want to configure is the name our DLNA server presents to its clients.
We can change this by finding and changing the following line:
Find ↡
#friendly_name=
Replace with ↡
friendly_name=myCLOUD_DLNA
You should now have finished configuring your MiniDLNA server on your Raspberry Pi.
You can save this file by pressing CTRL + X, followed by Y, then ENTER.
As we have made changes to the configuration of the MiniDLNA software, we will now need to restart its service.
We can restart the MiniDLNA service by making use of the following command:
sudo systemctl restart minidlna
At this point, you should now be able to see your Raspberry Pi’s MiniDLNA server pop up on your smart TV (connected to the same network).
Checking the Status of your MiniDLNA Server
First, we will need to find out what the local IP address of our Raspberry Pi is.
to get your Pi’s local IP address:
hostname -I
With your Raspberry Pi’s IP address, you can go to the following address in your favorite web browser.
Open the browser and key in:
http://[IPADDRESS]:8200
This page shows you the number of files available in your media library, as well as a list of all the currently connected clients.
Packing List
myCLOUD NAS DIY Kit
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- 1 x USB3.0 Dual Harddisk Docking Station (See Note*)
- 1 x Aluminum Case Enclosure = Heat Sink
- 1 x USB WiFi dongle
- 1 x 5dBi Omni Antenna
- 1 x micro htmi to hdmi 6 FT cable
- 1 x 5V 3.5A Power Supply Module
- 1 x myCLOUD NAS installer
- 1 x User guide
M18 MESH Router
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- Compliant to IEEE 802.11ax International Standard
- 3 WAN/LAN Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- Power supply unit
- 中文 menu supplemented with English user guide
Note* : Two drive slots - harddisk not included. You may fit a 3.5in SATA or 2.5in SATA on each slot. Max 16TB each drive. Total max storage capacity 32TB. The Harddisk Docking Station also comes with CLONE feature. Simply insert the master harddisk in the SOURCE slot and the slave harddisk in the TARGET slot, then press the CLONE button to clone.