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Home > Bubba > BubbaMon - the Firefox extension

BubbaMon - The Firefox extension

What is BubbaMon?

Bubbamon is not only an application for the Soundbridge but is also available as an extension for Firefox. This extension will collect information like harddisk usage, harddisk temperature (if hddtemp is installed on bubba), uptime and information about active downloads. This information is then available in a popup menu. The top of the menu will show some bubba statistics and below this is a list of active downloads. In the status bar you can see progressing downloads and finished downloads.

New downloads are easily added by either right clicking the link and select "Add to Bubba downloads" or by simply dragging the link and drop it on the area in the status bar.

This is what the popup menu look like. Below it you can see the icon in the status bar.

Preparing hddtemp

Before we install bubbamon we need to install and prepare hddtemp (if you don't want to use hddtemp, you can skip this part and deselect it later on when we configure bubbamon). I will not go into how to install hddtemp, instead visit the support forum at Excito and read the howto.
NOTE! You must run hddtemp as a daemon.

Next we need to prepare hddtemp. Unfortunately, bubbamon isn't able to connect directly to hddtemp. At least not in Firefox for Windows, it does however work in Firefox for Linux. But never mind that, we will use the same solution in both Windows and Linux.

We need to present the information as HTML/XML to the extension. To solve this, we use a small and simple PHP script that will be served by the webserver. Right click on this link and save the file on bubba. Prefered location would be in a folder named /var/www/html/bubbamon on bubba, but you can choose whatever you want as long as the web server can reach it.

Now start your favorite text editor and edit the file you just downloaded. You need to change the service port so it is the same you used when you configured hddtemp. If you used the default value (7634), then you're good to go, otherwise change it.

Next start firefox and fill in the address field with the address to the file you just edited. If you saved the file in /var/www/html/bubbamon, then the address is http://bubba/bubbamon/hddtemp.php The output in the browser should be nothing but a single line of text at the top, reading something like |/dev/hda|ST3320620A|45|C|

Installing and configuring BubbaMon

Click on the link below and store the file on your harddrive.

Once saved, start Firefox and select File->Open File... and select the file you just downloaded. Select Install Now and restart firefox.

You should now be able to see a small icon and some text (0:0) at the bottom right of the statusbar. Right click on this area and select BubbaMon Options... or choose the same from the Tools menu. This will open a dialog, where you can configure BubbaMon.

The dialog used to configure BubbaMon.

User name and password are the ones you use when you logg on to your bubba. This users downloads will be shown in the popup.

Intervall is the time, in seconds, between each update. I wouldn't recommend a value below 5. Note that the actuall update rate may be longer than set interval, especially if your Bubba is under heavy CPU load.

If you installed hddtemp, then you need to check the check box and enter the path to get to the page you visited earlier in "Preparing hddtemp". Note that you shouldn't enter the full path, only the subfolder. That is, if you saved the file in /var/www/html/bubbamon, then enter /bubbamon/hddtemp.php.

Immediate download is the old, default, download mode. You will probably be ok with just having this mode selected, but some private trackers require authorization that can't be made by the FTD. This is where Intermediate mode comes in. In intermediate mode, the actual torrent file (the one having a ".torrent" extension) is first downloaded to a local webserver. Firefox will do the authorization, then tell FTD to fetch the torrent file from the local webserver.

For intermediate mode you need to have access to a folder that is reachable by a webserver. I would suggest you use your "public_html" folder in your home folder on the bubba server, but any folder will do as long as a webserver can access the files. Here is how I configured it:

• "Intermediate as directory" is the name of the folder that will receive the torrent file (the real torrent file, ending with ".torrent", not the file you want in the end). I use my bubba so I enter \\BUBBA\home\johan\public_html in windows, and /home/johan/MyBubba/public_html in linux (my home folder on the bubba is mounted in the MyBubba folder on my local machine).
• Select the check box below to delete the torrents once they've been picked up by the FTD. This is to prevent others from using your private torrents.
• "Intermediate as URI" is the URI address as served by the web server. Since I use my bubba, I enter http://bubba/~johan (the "~johan" part will automatically be translated to "/home/johan/public_html" by the webserver on bubba and work for any user). Also make sure that all users have execute permission on this "public_html" folder or you'll get a 403 error.

Note that sometimes the intermediate download fails; the torrent is downloaded to the intermediate folder but the FTD doesn't pick it up as it should, but instead says the download failed because the torrent file was corrupt. I'm not sure why this happen, but all I can suggest is to try again. Using a second, local webserver (not the bubba one), appears to be working so maybe this is only an issue when storing the torrent in a network folder. If you find out why this happen, please let me now and I'll try and fix it.

NOTE There is a GUI difference between selecting only one download mode or both modes. When selecting both modes, the context menu (popup menu when you right click a link/file) will contain a sub menu named "Add to Bubba downloads". In this sub menu you can select immediate or intermediate mode. But if you only select one download mode, there will be no sub menu. Instead, choosing the "Add to Bubba downloads" will use the only selected mode.

Sometimes the setup fails (escpecially on Firefox 3, though I haven't seen the problem yet on the stable release). Here is what I did to get around the problem:

• Start with uninstalling the extension.
• Restart firefox.
• Remove the old password. Edit->Preferences->Security->Show Passwords (I think it is Tools->Options->Security->Show Passwords on Windows). Select chrome://bubbamon in the list and click Remove.
• Install the new extension
• Restart Firefox
• Configure bubbamon
• Restart Firefox

Plenty of restarts but that seemed to do the trick :-) Once installed and configured, there should be no problems.

Using bubbamon

In the status bar you can see the icon and two numbers, the numbers are progressing downloads, followed by finished downloads. If you click on this area a popup will show like the one in the picture above. In this popup you can see all downloads (if any are active) and the bubba status, like uptime and harddisk usage. Clicking on a download will show a dialog asking you if you really want to cancel that download.

To start new downloads, you can either drag the link and drop it on the bubbamon area in the status bar, or you can right click on the link and select Add to Bubba downloads from the popup menu. If you have enabled both types of download modes, you will see a submenu containing the download modes as items. If you only have one mode enabled, Add to Bubba downloads will use the one and only selected download mode.

Older versions

Here you'll find older versions if for some reason you want any of them.

Changes