File sharing

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Home icon grey.png   ▶ Video library
▶ Music library
▶ File sharing

One of the most convenient functions of Kodi is its ability to stream media from any networked PC (personal-computer). On this page is a list of file sharing related pages/topics on the Kodi wiki.


Supported file sharing protocols

FTP

If you have media-files on a computer and you want to share them to a Kodi device, an FTP server is one option you can use. By default Kodi (namely XBMCbuntu) does not have any FTP server software installed, that does not mean you cannot add a FTP server to the installation and use it. Here we defer to vsftpd as a example.


HTTP

Kodi contains an HTTP-client with which you can add sources in all sections in the Kodi interface.


NFS

Network File System, or NFS, is a way to share folders over a network, and was added to XBMC in v11 (Eden). The main benefits of using NFS instead of SMB are its low protocol overhead (which allows it to send data across a network more quickly) and its use of simple UID's to authenticate users rather than username/password combinations. This part bears repeating, as many people are confused on this point and try to create usernames and passwords to get Kodi to work with NFS.

Stop hand.png NFS does not use usernames or passwords as logins; it uses a UNIX-based "userID" (UID) alone.


RSS media source

Kodi supports RSS feeds as video and audio sources. Adding an RSS source in Kodi will make the individual RSS entries browsable in the Kodi interface, along with thumbnails and other metadata if available. RSS feeds cannot be scanned into the video or music library, so they are only accessible from the files view..


SFTP

Kodi ships with SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) (not to be confused with FTP) client support for accessing file shares.


SMB

Windows File Sharing, aka Server Message Block (SMB), is the standard client-server protocol used by Windows to share resources over a local network. SMB is available on all Windows computers and can be easily setup by the home user. SMB can also be accessed by other operating systems, which makes SMB the most commonly used network protocol to access content on a NAS or other remote hardware.


UPnP

Kodi can be used as a UPnP Server that will stream its library contents to other players on the network, or it can be used as a UPnP Client that can receive music and video from a UPnP Server on the network.


WebDAV

No content


Other file sharing topics

Avahi Zeroconf


Auto wake on lan

Starting in v13, Kodi can automatically issue a 'wake-on-lan' packet to MySQL or a file sharing server right before it needs to connect to it.


Library sharing

MySQL
If you have more than one Kodi device on your local network then you might want to synchronize them by sharing the Kodi library databases via the MySQL protocol. Using shared library databases allows you to store information for either your video or music library in a central database, so that multiple devices can access the same information at the same time.