MediaToad

(formally DLNAtoad but it now also does other stuff, and renaming the repo might break things)

What is this?

A minimal media server in a single jar. On start up it will index the working directory and make any media found available via a web interface (defaults to port 8192) and via DLNA. Additional features like user management and tagging are optional and enabled via CLI flags.

How do I use it?

It compiles to a runnable jar. Run it in the top directory you want to share. Your DLNA device should magically detect it on your LAN. DLNA is magical like that. Media files are identified purely on file extension. Known extensions are in the src/main/java/com/vaguehope/dlnatoad/media/MediaFormat.java file.

How can I compile it?

It's a Java Maven project.

$ mvn clean install
$ java -jar target/dlnatoad-1-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar

Any configuration?

You can include multiple specific root directories instead of defaulting to the current directory:

$ java -jar dlnatoad.jar foo/ bar/

Instead of listing paths on the command line a text file of directories can be given using the --tree pointing to a file with one path per line.

Ideally it should not have write access to any of the media directories, it will never be needed as data is only ever stored in the DB.

Thumbnails

If you want the web interface to show thumbnails the --thumbs flag must point to a directory where they can be written to. Thumbnails will be generated as part of scanning for files on start up and whenever new files are found. Currently thumbnails are only generated for images files.

DB and Tagging

If you want metadata to be collected and used, use --db to specify where this data should be stored. It will be created if it does not exist. This sqlite DB will also be used for storing any tags added to files.

All files will be hashed so that metadata can be reassociated when a file is moved or renamed. Metadata will be preserved so long as file content and name do not change at the same time - leave sufficient time for each change to be fully observed.

Reading Media Info

If a DB is provided to store it, media info like duration etc will be read using ffprobe. If ffprobe can not be found on PATH this will be skipped.

Users and Auth

WARNING: this auth system is BEST EFFORT, do not trust it to protect anything important. Auth changes are only loaded on startup and are not dynamically updated. The process must be restarted after any auth changes.

Directories can be restricted to specific users and users must have explicit permission to edit item tags. Any directory protected with an AUTH file will not be exported via DLNA, since that has no concept of permissions.

Uses are listed in a text file specified by the --userfile flag in the format described below. Additionally --sessiondir must point to an empty writable directory where session tokens can be stored. For obvious security reasons no other processes on the system should be able to read or write to the directory.

The users file has the following format:

$username $bcrypt_hash $permissions

For example this specifies 2 users. user1 has permission to edit tags in directories where they have permission. user2 has read-only access irrespective of per-direction permissions.

user1 $2a$10$su3ctfwMCULBeBvk0WDffuyGV/rJki4IZrFHrqs8XjtCXykMs5wii +edittags
user2 $2a$10$wV3v3YKOS4Iy8IFoA.ucnugDRrDMWdx2yv3Jx5rc0JCgtEWHmQMNi

Currently there is no sign-up page in the UI, but users can be added on the command line with the following command. Alternatively just ask them to generate and send a bcrypt hash :3.

$ java -jar target/dlnatoad-1-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar --userfile $path_to_file --adduser

Directories are protected by placing AUTH files in them listing one username per line. Each name may be followed by permissions. In the following example, user1 has permission to view and to add and remove tags. user2 has read-only access. No other users have any access.

user1 +edittags
user2

If a subdirectory has its own AUTH file a user must appear in all AUTH files in parent directories to have access. Permissions are taken from the first AUTH file found going back up the directory tree.

Running as a Service

See the systemd directory for an example unit file.