Comments on: HOWTO: Have Multiple Users Share an iTunes Library on One Machine http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/ Imagine Something Clever Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:45:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: borstenwurm http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-49074 borstenwurm Mon, 19 May 2008 17:56:39 +0000 http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-49074 great article! i haven't had the time to try it myself, but it sounds great and i was looking for a solution for this for quite a while. so thanks in advance! great article! i haven’t had the time to try it myself, but it sounds great and i was looking for a solution for this for quite a while. so thanks in advance!

]]> By: Peter http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-48384 Peter Fri, 02 May 2008 08:19:34 +0000 http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-48384 An alternative to running the script regularly, might be to use netinfo manager or the dscl command to make another group called "music" and make all required users members of that group. Alternatively just use an existing group such as staff and add users to that. Then you simply change the owner group and permissions using: chown phil:staff -R /Users/Shared/Music chmod -R 775 /Users/Shared/Music The above assumes that your main admin user is phil and the group you choose is staff. You end up with file permissions of rwxrwxr-x for all files. An alternative to running the script regularly, might be to use netinfo manager or the dscl command to make another group called “music” and make all required users members of that group. Alternatively just use an existing group such as staff and add users to that. Then you simply change the owner group and permissions using:
chown phil:staff -R /Users/Shared/Music
chmod -R 775 /Users/Shared/Music
The above assumes that your main admin user is phil and the group you choose is staff. You end up with file permissions of rwxrwxr-x for all files.

]]> By: Tom Harris http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-48370 Tom Harris Thu, 01 May 2008 22:49:27 +0000 http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-48370 In response to John's comment about using symbolic links to share the library, and the author's response, I suppose the inability to maintain separate playlists, ratings, etc. could be overcome while maintaining the elegance of the symbolic link approach by only symbolically linking the 'iTunes Music' and 'Album Artwork' directories within each user's iTunes folder to the shared music folder. I am currently setting up a shared music directory on a shared drive utilizing an Airport Extreme sharing some USB drives. I'll dedicate one of the drives as shared space to contain the shared 'iTunes Music' directory and shared 'Album Artwork' directories and then create symbolic links in each user's home folder on each computer in the house to those folders (for the macs at least -- I haven't looked into how the PC will treat the situation). I have no experience, however, creating symbolic links to networked drives and wonder 1) will there be any issues when iTunes is used when the shared drives are not mounted (the macs are notebooks), and 2) will there be file-locking issues (the shared drives will be HFS+ formatted shared over AFP). Any feedback would be appreciated. In response to John’s comment about using symbolic links to share the library, and the author’s response, I suppose the inability to maintain separate playlists, ratings, etc. could be overcome while maintaining the elegance of the symbolic link approach by only symbolically linking the ‘iTunes Music’ and ‘Album Artwork’ directories within each user’s iTunes folder to the shared music folder. I am currently setting up a shared music directory on a shared drive utilizing an Airport Extreme sharing some USB drives. I’ll dedicate one of the drives as shared space to contain the shared ‘iTunes Music’ directory and shared ‘Album Artwork’ directories and then create symbolic links in each user’s home folder on each computer in the house to those folders (for the macs at least — I haven’t looked into how the PC will treat the situation). I have no experience, however, creating symbolic links to networked drives and wonder 1) will there be any issues when iTunes is used when the shared drives are not mounted (the macs are notebooks), and 2) will there be file-locking issues (the shared drives will be HFS+ formatted shared over AFP). Any feedback would be appreciated.

]]> By: sal http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-27912 sal Tue, 04 Sep 2007 02:36:39 +0000 http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-27912 "To move your current library to the new location, navigate to Advanced » Consolidate Library...then proceed by clicking Consolidate. This step only needs to be performed one time per user to ensure that everything gets moved over to the new location." It's seems as though it just copied everything...? Once I ensure everything got moved, I look in my original directory ~/Music and everything is still there... any thoughts?? “To move your current library to the new location, navigate to Advanced » Consolidate Library…then proceed by clicking Consolidate. This step only needs to be performed one time per user to ensure that everything gets moved over to the new location.”

It’s seems as though it just copied everything…? Once I ensure everything got moved, I look in my original directory ~/Music and everything is still there…

any thoughts??

]]> By: Aaron Schaefer http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-26174 Aaron Schaefer Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:12:30 +0000 http://elasticdog.com/2007/04/howto-have-multiple-users-share-an-itunes-library-on-one-machine/#comment-26174 Using symbolic links would also get rid of the ability to have your own unique ratings and playlists, since you would be accessing the same meta data for all users. Since that was one of my initial requirements, I went with the way I laid out above, and just deal with the caveat of having to run "Add to Library..." when other users add music. Once things are set up, it's about as transparent as you can get from an end-user standpoint. Using symbolic links would also get rid of the ability to have your own unique ratings and playlists, since you would be accessing the same meta data for all users. Since that was one of my initial requirements, I went with the way I laid out above, and just deal with the caveat of having to run “Add to Library…” when other users add music. Once things are set up, it’s about as transparent as you can get from an end-user standpoint.

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