Beginners Guide to Usenet [Part 3 - Install & Configure sabNZBD+]

You have already read and digested:
Beginners Guide to Usenet [Part 1 - Introduction]
Beginners Guide to Usenet [Part 2 - Signing up for a Usenet Subscription]

Next you need to install the program that you will be using to download files from Usenet.

SABnzbd+

Windows

You can download the windows installer here.

Run the installer like you would with any other program.

Linux (debian based)

My setup involves running SBnzbd+ on a Raspberry Pi, a $35 ARM based mini computer. The instructions here are the easiest way to get SAB running on any Debian based linux distribution including Ubuntu, Mint, etc.

I originally ran the python scripts from the tar.gz on the SABnzbd+ website, and that is totally fine for you to do, but if you want to do that then you are probably not interested in this blog. Instead you want the easy way out. You want the nice simple method...

So here it is.

The Ubuntu repositories contain a super duper old and outdated version of SABnzbd+...

... and it will work just fine for you... seriously!

sudo apt-get install sabnzbdplus

sudo nano /etc/default/sabnzdbplus

Add the correct information to the text

USER= value to your raspberry pi username. 

HOST= 0.0.0.0

sudo service sabnzbdplus start

This will run the startup script which is in your startup services at /etc/init.d/sabnzbdplus

You should be returned to a normal bash command line and the web interface will now be available on your local network. To access it simply point a web browser to the pi's ip address and sabnzbdplus' port. ie "192.168.1.100:8080" The default port is 8080.

If that has trouble check your raspberry pi's ip address again by running

ifconfig

Verified ip in hand try again.

If you still have trouble try "ipaddress:8080/sabnzbd/"

You should be greeted by the SAB web gui and the setup wizard!

OSX

Download the .dmg here.

Install like you would any other application.

Configuration

Once you have SABnzbd plus installed, on Windows/OSX a browser window will open and you will be greeted with the setup wizard. For linux you may need to open a browser manually as is noted in the  instructions.

During the setup wizard, you will be asked a series of questions:

• Language
• Pick your preferred language.
• Theme
• I recommend the 'Plush' theme.
• Even on low powered hardware, it uses the least resources as far as I can tell.
• Access Options
• Visible to network = yes
• Create a username and password!
• You must do this if you want other cool stuff to work later!
• HTTPS
• up to you...
• I dont think I have mine setup to use https. I was having certificate issues in chrome when connecting from outside my home network. I think it is probably easier to just leave it off...
• Server Setup
• This is where your info from step two goes!
• As an example! My Usenetserver account looks like this...
• HOST = news.usenetserver.com
• PORT = 563
• Username = "my username"
• Password = "my password"
• Connections = 20
• SSL = yes
• Test your configuration options.
• Hopefully you automatically get a nice green A-okay!
• If everything looks like its working, move on. If not, then you need to double check your server settings!
• Index site options
• You can choose to input NZB site accounts directly into SABnzbd+, but I prefer to use Sickbeard and other great programs to search and automatically find NZBs.
• In case you aren't sure, NZBs are the Usenet equivalent to Bittorrent's ".torrent files" and "magnet links". They are the little instruction packets you use to download the file you want.
• Restart
• restart and wait for the GUI to appear!

Next I recommend configuring all of your SABnzbd+ settings.

• Click on "Config" in the menu bar at the top of the WebGui.

1. General
• This tab contains some very useful settings.
• SABnzbd Host = 0.0.0.0
• SABnzbd Port = you can change this to suit your needs. I think the default is 10000.
• when you connect to the webgui you use "ipaddress:port"
• for example "192.168.1.100:10000" might be the address to your webgui. You are able to change the port because it is possible to run multiple server operations on one machine. My raspberry pi for example runs sabnzbd+ and sickbeard. Both are managed via webgui, but have the same IP address. This is why you need to give them different ports. That way you can connect to the different services!
• SABnzbd Username = your preferred username
• many third party applications demand that you have a username and password for authentication.
• SABnzbd Password = your preferred password
• Web interface = Plush
• this is the least resource intensive skin
• Secondary Web Interface = none
• It is also cool to install a mobile skin as a secondary interface!
• API Key
• This is super important!
• Your API key is the key that third party applications will use to securely connect with SABnzbd
• NZB Key
• Another important authentication key
• Disable API-key = false
• Enable HTTPS = false
• up to you, but I dont see the need and it just slows down the connection.
• all options here you can handle on your own.
• Download speed limit = 0
• Article cache limit = I do not have a cache limit set on my rPI which only has 256mb of ram. This is up to you.
• Cleanup List = blank
• we will cover this in sickbeard postprocessing
2. Folders - These settings will be up to you to figure out, but I will provide general guidelines!
• The biggest thing here is that SABnzbd needs a VERY SPECIFIC set of folders to work properly! Organization is the name of the game here! Try to follow my suggestions as best you can.
• Temporary Download Folder = ~/downloads/incomplete
• Minimum Free Space for tem download folder = 5000M
• or some number appropriate for your drive!
• Completed Download folder = ~/downloads/complete
• Permissions for completed downloads = 0777
• Watched folder = ~/downloads/nzbs
• watched folder scan speed = 5
• post processing scripts folder = blank
• email templates = blank
• password file = blank
• admin folder = admin
• log folder = logs
• .nzb backup = blank
3. Switches
• Check new release = true
• Launch browser on startup = false
• i find this annoying
• Use 12hr clock = false
• i like 24hr time in my logs
• Disconnect on empty queue = rue
• send group = false
• SSL type = V23
• provider specific
• Detect Duplicate Downloads = off
• Pause downloading during post processing = true
• on the raspberry pi this is essential!
• on more substantial machines you can disable this switch.
• Pause job for encrypted RAR = true
• Only get articles for top of queue = true
• most NAS devices will crash otherwise under the strain of adding >20 simultaneous downloads.
• sort by age = true
• pre-queue script = none
• ignore samples = off
• enable quick check = true
• enable unrar = true
• enable unzip = true
• enable filejoin = true
• enable ts join = true
• enable par cleanup = true
• fail on yEnc CRC errors = true
• Post Process only verified jobs = true
• Enable SFV-based checks = true
• check result of unpacking = true
• extra par2 parameters = blank
• nice parameters = blank
• ionice parameters = blank
• Enable folder rename = true
• replace spaces in folder name = false
• I like spaces
• replace dots in foldernames
• this is irrelevant we are using sickbeard for folder processing
• replace illegal characters in folder names = true
4. Servers
• You already set this up in the SETUP wizard
5. Scheduling
• No changes are needed in here
6. Email
• No changes are needed in here
7. Index Sites
• No changes are needed in here
• We will put these sites into Sickbeard
8. Categories
• This one is important!
• You need to make three categories besides the "Default" category
• whenever a third party program adds a file to the download queue, it will use one of these tags. The file will be auto sorted into the correct download folder, where the third party apps will look for completed files to post-process and move to your storage server for filing.
• "movies", "music", and "tv"
• you will notice that I do everything in lowercase... this is for linux compatibility and ease of access in the CLI
• "movies"
• priority = default
• processing = +Delete
• folder/path = ~/downloads/complete/movies
• SAVE
• "music"
• priority = default
• processing = +Delete
• folder/path = ~/downloads/complete/music
• SAVE
• "tv"
• priority = default
• processing = +Delete
• folder/path = ~/downloads/complete/tv
• SAVE
9. Sorting
• No changes are needed in here

Go ahead and save all your changes then restart SABnzbd+ using the webgui. Make sure that all of your settings are saved properly after rebooting and you are ready to move on to the next step!

[Part 4 - Configuring Third Party Applications!]