What is the purpose of the XRP secret / seed for moneyd?

[theogravity]

It's not clear as to what my secret would be used for here.

There's a group of people trying to follow the instructions on: https://medium.com/codius/how-to-run-your-own-codius-host-42e13afe1fb2

Can we get some info on why the secret is required?

(Myself and the people I speak of lack any ILP knowledge - we simply want to set up codius hosts to support the community)

[sharafian]

Codius uses Moneyd so that it can receive payment for running contracts. Moneyd uses your XRP secret to make a payment channel to a connector. This lets you send payments out into Interledger. The connector also creates a payment channel to you, allowing it to send you money. Once more livenet connectors exist that have other currencies (ethereum, lightning, etc.) you'll be able to configure moneyd with one of those instead, if you want.

[fjx2000]

It makes sense for client who needs to upload contract to hosters, but for hosters, it is unlikely to send payment out, it is receiving payment only. Maybe some hosters are unwilling to take the risk to expose their private key.