Inspired by the contributions by (in alphabetical order) AndyA, Arne, Gabsor and s-n1965 I developed a small package which installs some utilities and changes some settings of the Playon!HD Mini (PV73200). This facilitates redoing modifications of the Mini after a new firmware installation.

The utilities are:

mountSwap (contributed by s-n1965. You must provide a Linux swap partition on a USB memory device (hard disk or memory stick) yourself, 128 MB is sufficient)
Stupid FTP server (contributed by Gabsor. FTP provides an alternative for copying files to and from your Mini. In my experience using the Stupid FTP server in combination with the Filezilla FTP client on the PC is faster and more reliable than the Mini's SMB (Samba) service.)

The changed settings are:

PATH environment variable to include path to samba service and ftp server (contributed by AndyA)
Custom workgroup name (contributed by Arne)

Download the mini_utils.zip file to your PC and copy the unzipped mini_utils folder to the root of a USB stick.
Disconnect all USB devices from your Mini and insert the USB stick with the mini_utils folder.
In a Telnet session give the command (use copy and paste to copy this command into the Telnet window):

/tmp/usbmounts/sda1/mini_utils/utils.sh

The utilities will be installed and your Mini will reboot, disrupting the Telnet connection.

After reconnecting to your Mini in a new Telnet session you can give the following commands from any directory:

samba start|stop|status|restart (this will override the SAMBA setting of the GUI)
ftp start|stop|status

Further swapping will be enabled with the minFree parameter set to 5120 and your Mini will be a member of the MEDIAPLAYERS workgroup.

All changes are stored in the Mini's flash memory, so you need to run the script file only once after installation of the firmware. However, running the script more than once does no harm. If the FTP server is running, you will get an error message because the binary program cannot be copied then.

After installation the FTP server allows anonymous login with full permissions. You can change this in the stupid/stupid-ftpd.conf file, either before or after installation. After installation the stupid directory can be found in /usr/local/etc/ . The default FTP server document root is /tmp/usbmounts/, so you can access files on any USB memory device attached to your Mini. This may also be changed in the configuration file. Be careful not to change this file location to the Mini's flash memory. The comment lines in the configuration file provide explanation on these settings.

The name of the Mini's workgroup can be changed in the smb_anonymous_head.conf file, also before or after installation. After installation the configuration file is located in /usr/local/etc/package/samba/lib .

All changes in the package´s script files must be made with a suitable Linux editor on your PC or vi on your Mini. Windows Notepad and Wordpad cannot correctly save Linux script files.

I used the opportunity to delete a great number of superfluous comment lines with obsolete commands from the original firmware scripts rcS and profile, that are replaced by this utility.

As I developed the utility for my own convenience, I omitted all error trapping from the scripts. So you use the script completely at your own responsibility and risk. In the worst case you may have to reinstall the firmware in the safe mode to undo the changes of the script.

Finally all errors in this package are mine, because I modified some of the contributors' scripts and files and disregarded their (especially s-n1965's) warnings.

I wish to thank all contributors for their efforts to improve the Playon's firmware.

Nice one Duivels - thanks. I haven't tried the FTP server before, so I'll give it a go
Andy

Hi Evert,

I think it is better the entry in rcS with the order echo to do instead of copying rcs completely new.

In FW 5440 only the HD2 and the Mini2 same rcS, all the others have are different. Whether she is same now in the FW 7317 with all I do not know, anyway it was changed from FW 5440 to FW 7317.

It is to be taken more independently and certainly available rcS and to add only the entry.

In yours utils.sh change:
# Replace rcS with added utilities
cp /tmp/usbmounts/sda1/mini_utils/rcS /usr/local/etc/

in:
# Make entry in rcS with added utilities
echo -e '\n/usr/local/etc/mountSwap &\n' >> /usr/local/etc/rcS


PS: I haven't tried the FTP server before, too


Greeting Steffen

Do you mean by this; copying (via FTP) to an attached USB-device?

@Steffen:
I have chosen to replace the entire rcS script to get rid of all obsolete command lines that were turned into comment lines. I think I deleted about 50% of the total number of lines.
When programming I also change command lines to comment for testing, but if I do not need them later, I delete them completely to avoid confusion. AC Ryan and Realtek programming is a bit sloppy, as you know only too well.
I like the Stupid FTP server, it is faster and more reliable than the Samba service.

@Snowmiss:
Yes, what other place would you copy to? On a Mini (2) you can only copy to and read from attached USB memory devices.

I thought soo

When I had an external harddrive attached to my mini, I always took it to the PC whenever I wanted to copy something on it. Nowadays I use a NAS (as you might know), so there is no need to copy files through the mini.

So did I, but for copying a number of photos or this toolkit the network connection is suitable and FTP better than SMB.

The mini_utils.zip file (see the first post) has been uploaded again on May 5, 2013.