Hauppauge pci cards passthru to docker/unraid

[Galaxysurfer]

Hi,

I may actually make the switch to a docker. I need to know if it is possible to get dvd drivers for my docker. I previously have been using a straight install on Mx Linux. Is this possible? I know nothing about card pass-through. Is this possible? I have WinTV Quad & 2250 & 2255 cards I want to switch over. I am looking for a free option at this point & dont want to use unraid since I wouldn't be creating a standalone dedicated media server. In the future that may change if I purchase a server for uses as a NAS.

Galaxysurfer

[Striker:WG]

I can say that on Unraid it is possible to pass through cards to virtual machines.

As long as the drivers are loaded in the Unraid OS I am able to access devices like Hauppage HD-PVR and my FireWire PCI card within the SageTV docker with no additional effort required to passthrough the hardware.

As far as I am aware, it should work the same if you are running a docker on a different host OS but I don't have any real experience with it. I dabbled with docker in Linux briefly but it was just so much easier to manage via Unraid.

[Galaxysurfer]

I don't understand how Docker works. Wont be using Unraid.

Will the docker see my Hauppauge pci card drivers on the host? or do I need to import drivers or create a mock network driver like Unraid uses?

I am using Debian based OS not Ubuntu. Will I have dependency issues due to differences between Ubuntu & my Debian OS? Any help with this would be appreciated with this basic linux user.

Worst case scenario is that am stuck with my non docker install. I was hoping to be able to use commercial skip etc that haven't used in many version changes.

Galaxysurfer

[wayner]

Docker creates kind of mini Virtual Machines that are walled off from the rest of your system. This would allow you to run multiple versions of SageTV if you wanted. I went from using Windows to using unRAID several years ago and it is great as unRAID is a Linux distro designed to primarily be a network file server. I run SageTV and a bunch of other apps in a docker.

There are some people using other flavours of Linux, but unRAID probably has a lot more users. It also is what is being used by some of the devs, although some of those are no longer using SageTV.

edit - Ubuntu is actually Debian based.

[emveepee]

Docker is quite different from a VM. Devices like tuners would need to be created on the host abnd then the /dev/dvb devices would need to passed to the Docker just like directories and other devices would be passed.

The SageTV Linux Docker instance would then have to read this device and be able to scan it like it would on bare metal Linux.

Martin

[stuckless]

When you `docker run --privileged` (ie, use --privileged) the container has access to all the devices on the system. For the initial testing (or general ease of use) this is ideal, since, if the device is present and working on the host system, then it can be accessed inside the container.

[Galaxysurfer]

Okay good to know. I figured it was a matter of getting tuners into docker. Any leads or instructions on how to steer host pci cards into docker instance?
I would love to get this working so can get the commercial skipping feature working again. ( I know it wasn't perfect, often cutting off bits of show) Docker is a whole new learning curve to tackle. heck If I can get Linux working this should be not too bad to add to the toolbox.

Found this under Add host device to container (--device)

https://docs.docker.com/engine/refer...mmandline/run/

Any special instructions for use in SageTV?
PS I dont use Ubuntu. I use MxLinux which uses systVinit. Dont know how Docker could affect that.

Any way to get both client & server working on same linux PC in this scenario?

Galaxysurfer