Kodi's SSH implementation is beyond awful

tl;dr: if you're on an S905 you can't break roughly 9mbit/s of throughput using SSH: here's how to.

I compiled my own LibreElec build from kszaq's tree using polling on bcmdhd as opposed to soft interrupts thinking the box was maxing out similar to I/O and gained (on average) 4mbps more wireless throughput. This obviously isn't enough as content today (even standard 1080i OTA TV) requires atleast 21mbit/s. Evaluating other options brought me to absurdity: what if I use sshfs on LibreElec, mount my remote shares to a local mountpoint, then point the box to that local mountpoint?

Compiled sshfs (which is also available via nettools LibreELEC.tv/packages/addons/addon-depends/network-tools-depends at master · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub ).

Created some keys, added them to my server.

In autostart.sh, added the following (which is gross):

LibreELEC:~ # cat .config/autostart.sh
#!/bin/bash
(
    echo 0 > /sys/module/di/parameters/nr2_en
    echo 1 > /sys/module/di/parameters/bypass_all
    echo '444,10bit' > /sys/class/amhdmitx/amhdmitx0/attr

    /usr/bin/mkdir -p /tmp/mnt/FileServer
    /usr/bin/mkdir -p /tmp/mnt/Backup
    /usr/bin/mkdir -p /tmp/mnt/Recordings

    while true; do
            ping -c 1 8.8.8.8
            if [[ $? == 0 ]]; then
            break
            fi
    done
    /storage/.kodi/addons/virtual.network-tools/bin/sshfs host:/mnt/WebU /tmp/mnt/FileServer -o workaround=all -o reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15,ServerAliveCountMax=3 -o IdentityFile=/storage/.ssh/id_rsa,port=24567,allow_other,no_remote_lock,no_remote_posix_lock,atomic_o_trunc,umask=0222,readdir_ino,kernel_cache
) &
LibreELEC:~

Added my libraries in Kodi to point to /tmp/mnt/FileServer...

Sure enough, 50mbit/s which is what my laptop gets to the AP.

This is also way more secure as we're using PKI as opposed to insecure plain-text auth using SSH1 that Kodi still forces...

Hope this helps someone.

Quote from plikmuny

Very nice Kyle. i would like to try it out on my KI Pro.

If i have understood it correctly, does it mean that the Video Buffering issue will be gone with your code implementation or our Network Access Speed will be increased or our storage Disk Access and writing Speed will be Improved ?

Can you explain to me in simple Terms pls ? i am not an expert.

Yes, I was unable to watch 4K/1080p (high-bitrate) content over wireless/wired because of this limitation. After switching to this method of mounting shares outside of the application and then pointing the app to these FUSE shares, I can now watch any recorded TV I have. I might try CIFS to my router, but as this is a satellite site the backing software is still sshfs; just depends on where it's located. Using Kodi with this method in-app resulted in actually worse performance than using SSH in Kodi.

I was/am rolling with the following, but I don't think it's necessary anymore.

LibreELEC:~ # cat .kodi/userdata/advancedsettings.xml

<advancedsettings>

  <cache>

    <buffermode>1</buffermode>

    <memorysize>1239460608</memorysize>

    <readfactor>30.0</readfactor>

  </cache>

</advancedsettings>

LibreELEC:~ #

PS: What's up with the weird newlines in [/code] tags?