Mini routers are curious things. They are both something super useful, but also something most people don’t know about or want. The reason being is that they are small, and you might not think the small size could lead to many useful things.
However, you’re quite wrong! Besides the obvious convenience of bringing along a mini VPN router to encrypt your internet on the go, as seen in this mini VPN router setup guide, you can also do other tricks on it, like setup a media server!
Why setup a media server on a mini router?
Well there are several use cases. Let’s say that you’re in the car, or on the go, and you want to be able to access content wireless on something like an iPhone or iPad. By installing a media server on your mini router, with a flash stick to hold the content, you can wirelessly connect to it and stream content to your devices. This means you can save media space on your iOS or Android devices by using the flash stick on the media server.
It’s pretty easy to do this. Simply install VLC on your device, then connect to the mini router network and tap on the DLNA server, then browse your media. Additionally, if you have a fire stick you can also use that to connect to your media server as well. Simply download a media player like VLC Mobile Team App for Fire, and you can stream media content to your fire stick and media device.
You might be thinking, why not setup a media server on a laptop instead? Well, you could, but mini routers are easier to carry around than laptops, and they work great with tablets!
DLNA Media Server on Mini Router Setup Guide
This setup guide will show you how to setup a DLNA media server on the Gli mini router so you can stream music, video’s and other media via Wi-Fi. This can come in handy when watching latest videos when in a workplace, hotel, or car (when riding shotgun of course.)
Hardware needed:
- 1 Gli Mini VPN router
- 1 LAN cable
- 1 USB stick
1. First start up the mini VPN router and make sure you setup user/pass to something secure and something that you will remember. Write down the password/username.
2. For Windows users, Download putty. (Mac and Linux users can SSH into the router from the terminal: ssh [email protected])
3. Start putty, select SSH option, enter router IP 192.168.8.1 (Or IP you changed it to), and click connect
4. Enter mini router Username / password, hit enter. (username usually root or admin)
5. Make sure the mini router is conencted to the internet! You can verify by typing command: ping -c 4 google.com. [hit enter]
6. Update the software by typing: opkg update. [hit enter]
7. Install MiniDLNA packages: opkg install minidlna, [hit enter], opkg install luci-app-minidlna, [hit enter]
8. Make sure that MiniDLNA runs every time the router boots by entering: /etc/init.d/minidlna enable, [hit enter]
9. Fire up MiniDLNA by entering this command: /etc/init.d/minidlna start, [hit enter]
10. Next, plugin a USB that has some media (.mp3’s, .mp4’s) on it, reboot the router and test it out. To test, connect to wifi using a Computer or mobile device. If on windows, go to network, then open DLNA server in Windows media player. If on Android/iOS, simply download VLC media player to browse the server,
11. For advanced users, you can access settings under the OpenWRT menu on the top tabs. However, no further settings changes should be needed unless you want to customize the search folder or media types
