Sharing OSMC Movie Library

Hi there!

Would it be possible to share my library with port forwarding?

I would like to make it easier for my friends to check out my movie library, so they could choose the movie from home.

There should be no access to control the OSMC-center, only watch the movies on the external harddrives.

Anyone with any ideas?

At the moment I am port forwarding my control-center, which I do not see as a smart solution for this.

Do you want them to be able to watch movies, or just see what movies you have?

If you want them be be able to watch movies, the best way would probably be to setup a VPN.

If you just want to share the movie database, you could forward the MySQL port (3306), but be very careful doing this as MySQL isn’t real secure.

What would forwarding the MySQL port do?

It would allow another instance of Kodi to connect to your database.

The default web-interface does provide a stream function, but it’s not 100% compatible with all files and/or browsers + gives them some options to mess with your installation.
MySql isn’t going to do the job. The media will not be reachable for your friends as its filepath is stored in the database.

Using ftp,sftp or http are options that could be forwarded without much harm (and hair pulling from frustration :wink: )
ftp is the easiest method. sftp is more secure, but costs more performance and bandwidth.

have a look at http://kodi.wiki/view/File_sharing

FTP sharing over the web has been a known insecure method of sharing for years now. as it transmits usernames and passwords in the open. This should never be suggested as an option.

A more radical solution (and more work setting it up) is to have an Emby server (ideally on a separate machine) and allow browser access to your movie library.

That’s the set-up I have and OSMC/Kodi accesses the library via the Emby add-on.