vodmatic reads your media over a connection you configure under Library › Storage connections. It only ever lists directories and reads file sizes; it never writes to your media server.
The connection types
| SFTP | SSH file transfer. The usual choice, and the one to prefer. Works with a password or a private key. |
| SSH | Runs ls over an SSH session. Use this when SFTP is disabled on your server but shell access works. |
| FTP / FTPS | Plain or TLS FTP. Fine if that is what your server offers. Prefer FTPS over FTP. |
| HTTP index | An open directory listing served over the web. No credentials, read-only by nature. |
| Local | A path on the machine running vodmatic. Only relevant for a self-hosted install. |
What to enter
- Host and port — the media server's address. 22 for SFTP and SSH, 21 for FTP.
- Username — an account that can list your media folders. A read-only account is enough and is what we recommend.
- Password, or a private key — one or the other. For a key, paste the private key itself, plus a passphrase if it has one.
- Base directory — the folder everything else is relative to, for example
/mnt/media.
Your credentials are write-only
Once saved, a password or private key is never shown again, not in the panel and not to our support staff. The field appears blank on every later visit. Typing something new replaces it; leaving it blank keeps what is there.
This is deliberate. If you lose the password, we cannot recover it for you — you enter a new one.
Testing it
Every connection has a Test button, and it does a real connection rather than checking the form. It reports one of three things:
- Connected, with a sample of what it can see. Read the sample. If those are not your media paths, the base directory is wrong.
- Connected, but the folder is empty. Usually the base directory points one level too high or too low.
- An error. The message is the server's own, passed through unchanged.
Common failures
Connection refused |
Nothing is listening on that port, or a firewall is dropping us. Check that your media server allows connections from our server's address. |
Authentication failed |
Wrong username, wrong password, or a key the server will not accept. If you are using a key, check that the matching public key is in that account's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. |
No such file or directory |
The base directory does not exist for that account. Log in as that user yourself and run ls on the path. |
Operation timed out |
We can reach the port but the server never answers. Often a firewall that drops rather than refuses. |
A note on speed
A scan lists directories, and a media server with tens of thousands of files across deep folders takes a while. That is normal. The scan runs in the background — you do not have to keep the page open.
