Configure Server

These settings define the server configuration, this includes UPnP behavior, selection of database, accounts for the UI as well as installation locations of shared data.

server

<server> ... </server>

• Required

This section defines the server configuration parameters.

attributes:

debug-mode=...

• Optional

• Default: ””

Activate debugging messages only for certain subsystems. The following subsystems are available: thread, sqlite3, cds, server, content, update, mysql, sqldatabase, proc, autoscan, script, web, layout, exif, transcoding, taglib, ffmpeg, wavpack, requests, connmgr, mrregistrar, xml, clients, iohandler, online, metadata, matroska. Multiple subsystems can be combined with a |. Names are not case sensitive. This is for developers and testers mostly and has to be activted in cmake options at compile time (-DWITH_DEBUG_OPTIONS=YES).

• Example: ”Cds|Content|Web” for messages when accessing the server via upnp or web.

port

<port>0</port>

• Optional

• Default: 0 (automatic)

Specifies the port where the server will be listening for HTTP requests. Note, that because of the implementation in the UPnP SDK only ports above 49152 are supported. The value of zero means, that a port will be automatically selected by the SDK.

ip

<ip>192.168.0.23</ip>

• Optional

• Default: ip of the first available interface.

Specifies the IP address to bind to, by default one of the available interfaces will be selected.

interface

<interface>eth0</interface>

• Optional

• Default: first available interface.

Specifies the interface to bind to, by default one of the available interfaces will be selected.

name

<name>Gerbera</name>

• Optional

• Default: Gerbera

Server friendly name, you will see this on your devices that you use to access the server.

manufacturerURL

<manufacturerURL>http://gerbera.io/</manufacturerURL>

• Optional

• Default: http://gerbera.io/

This tag sets the manufacturer URL of a UPnP device, a custom setting may be necessary to trick some renderers in order to enable special features that otherwise are only active with the vendor implemented server.

virtualURL

<virtualURL>http://gerbera.io/</virtualURL>

• Optional

• Default: unset

This tag sets the virtual URL of Gerbera content which is part of the browse response. The value defaults to http://<ip>:<port>.

externalURL

<externalURL>http://gerbera.io/</externalURL>

• Optional

• Default: unset

This tag sets the external URL of Gerbera web UI, a custom setting may be necessary if you want to access the web page via a reverse proxy. The value defaults to virtualURL or http://<ip>:<port> if virtualURL is not set.

modelName

<modelName>Gerbera</modelName>

• Optional

• Default: Gerbera

This tag sets the model name of a UPnP device, a custom setting may be necessary to trick some renderers in order to enable special features that otherwise are only active with the vendor implemented server.

modelNumber

<modelNumber>0.9.0</modelNumber>

• Optional

• Default: Gerbera version

This tag sets the model number of a UPnP device, a custom setting may be necessary to trick some renderers in order to enable special features that otherwise are only active with the vendor implemented server.

serialNumber

<serialNumber>1</serialNumber>

• Optional

• Default: 1

This tag sets the serial number of a UPnP device.

presentationURL

<presentationURL append-to="ip">80/index.html</presentationURL>

• Optional

• Default: ”/”

The presentation URL defines the location of the servers user interface, usually you do not need to change this however, vendors who want to ship our server along with their NAS devices may want to point to the main configuration page of the device.

attributes:

append-to=...

• Optional

• Default: ”none”

The append-to attribute defines how the text in the presentationURL tag should be treated. The allowed values are:

append-to="none"

Use the string exactly as it appears in the presentationURL tag.

append-to="ip"

Append the string specified in the presentationURL tag to the ip address of the server, this is useful in a dynamic ip environment where you do not know the ip but want to point the URL to the port of your web server.

append-to="port"

Append the string specified in the presentationURL tag to the server ip and port, this may be useful if you want to serve some static pages using the built in web server.

udn

<udn>uuid:[generated-uuid]</udn>

• Required

• Default: none

Unique Device Name, according to the UPnP spec it must be consistent throughout reboots. You can fill in something yourself. Review the Generating Configuration section of the documentation to see how to use gerbera to create a default configuration file.

home

<home override="yes">/home/your_user_name/gerbera</home>

• Required

• Default: `~` - the HOME directory of the user running gerbera.

Server home - the server will search for the data that it needs relative to this directory - basically for the sqlite database file. The gerbera.html bookmark file will also be generated in that directory. The home directory is only relevant if the config file or the config dir was specified in the command line. Otherwise it defaults to the HOME path of the user runnung Gerbera. The environment variable GERBERA_HOME can be used to point to another directory, in which case the config file is expected as ${GERBERA_HOME}/.config/gerbera.

override="yes"

• Optional

• Default: ”no”

Force all relative paths to base on the home directory of the config file even if it was read relative to the environment variables or from command line. This means that Gerbara changes its home during startup.

webroot

<webroot>/usr/share/gerbera/web</webroot>

• Required

• Default: depends on the installation prefix that is passed to the configure script.

Root directory for the web server, this is the location where device description documents, UI html and js files, icons, etc. are stored.

alive

<alive>180</alive>

• Optional

• Default: 180, (Results in alive messages every 60s, see below) this is according to the UPnP specification.

• Min: 62 (A message sent every 1s, see below)

Interval for broadcasting SSDP:alive messages

An advertisement will be sent by LibUPnP every (this value/2)-30 seconds, and will have a cache-control max-age of this value.

For example: A value of 62 will result in an SSDP advertisement being sent every second. (62 / 2 = 31) - 30 = 1. The default value of 180 results results in alive messages every 60s. (180 / 2 = 90) - 30 = 60.

Note:

If you experience disconnection problems from your device, e.g. Playstation 4, when streaming videos after about 5 minutes, you can try changing the alive value to 86400 (which is 24 hours)

pc-directory

<pc-directory upnp-hide="no"/>

• Optional

• Default: no

Enabling this option will make the PC-Directory container invisible for UPnP devices.

Note:

independent of the above setting the container will be always visible in the web UI!

tmpdir

<tmpdir>/tmp/</tmpdir>

• Optional

• Default: /tmp/

Selects the temporary directory that will be used by the server.

bookmark

<bookmark>gerbera.html</bookmark>

• Optional

• Default: gerbera.html

The bookmark file offers an easy way to access the user interface, it is especially helpful when the server is not configured to run on a fixed port. Each time the server is started, the bookmark file will be filled in with a redirect to the servers current IP address and port. To use it, simply bookmark this file in your browser, the default location is ~/.config/gerbera/gerbera.html

upnp-string-limit

<upnp-string-limit>

• Optional

• Default: disabled

This will limit title and description length of containers and items in UPnP browse replies, this feature was added as a workaround for the TG100 bug which can only handle titles no longer than 100 characters. A negative value will disable this feature, the minimum allowed value is “4” because three dots will be appended to the string if it has been cut off to indicate that limiting took place.

ui

<ui enabled="yes" poll-interval="2" poll-when-idle="no"/>

• Optional

This section defines various user interface settings.

WARNING!

The server has an integrated filesystem browser, that means that anyone who has access to the UI can browse your filesystem (with user permissions under which the server is running) and also download your data! If you want maximum security - disable the UI completely! Account authentication offers simple protection that might hold back your kids, but it is not secure enough for use in an untrusted environment!

Note:

since the server is meant to be used in a home LAN environment the UI is enabled by default and accounts are deactivated, thus allowing anyone on your network to connect to the user interface.

Attributes:

enabled=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

Enables (”yes”) or disables (”no”) the web user interface.

show-tooltips=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

This setting specifies if icon tooltips should be shown in the web UI.

show-numbering=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

Set track number to be shown in the web UI.

show-thumbnail=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

This setting specifies if thumbnails or cover art should be shown in the web UI.

poll-interval=...

• Optional

• Default: 2

The poll-interval is an integer value which specifies how often the UI will poll for tasks. The interval is specified in seconds, only values greater than zero are allowed. The value can be given in a valid time format.

poll-when-idle=...

• Optional

• Default: no

The poll-when-idle attribute influences the behavior of displaying current tasks: - when the user does something in the UI (i.e. clicks around) we always poll for the current task and will display it - if a task is active, we will continue polling in the background and update the current task view accordingly - when there is no active task (i.e. the server is currently idle) we will stop the background polling and only request updates upon user actions, but not when the user is idle (i.e. does not click around in the UI)

Setting poll-when-idle to “yes” will do background polling even when there are no current tasks; this may be useful if you defined multiple users and want to see the tasks the other user is queuing on the server while you are actually idle.

The tasks that are monitored are:

• adding files or directories

• removing items or containers

• automatic rescans

Child tags:

<accounts enabled="yes" session-timeout="30"/>

• Optional

This section holds various account settings.

Attributes:

enabled=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

Specifies if accounts are enabled yes or disabled no.

session-timeout=...

• Optional

• Default: 30

The session-timeout attribute specifies the timeout interval in minutes. The server checks every five minutes for sessions that have timed out, therefore in the worst case the session times out after session-timeout + 5 minutes. The value can be given in a valid time format.

Accounts can be defined as shown below:

<account user="name" password="password"/>
<account user="name" password="password"/>

• Optional

There can be multiple users, however this is mainly a feature for the future. Right now there are no per-user permissions.

<items-per-page default="25">

• Optional

• Default: 25

This sets the default number of items per page that will be shown when browsing the database in the web UI. The values for the items per page drop down menu can be defined in the following manner:

<option>10</option>
<option>25</option>
<option>50</option>
<option>100</option>

Default: 10, 25, 50, 100

Note:

this list must contain the default value, i.e. if you define a default value of 25, then one of the <option> tags must also list this value.

storage

<storage use-transactions="yes">

• Required

Defines the storage section - database selection is done here. Currently SQLite3 and MySQL are supported. Each storage driver has it’s own configuration parameters.

Exactly one driver must be enabled: sqlite3 or mysql. The available options depend on the selected driver.

Attributes

use-transactions="yes"

• Optional

• Default: no

Enables transactions. This feature should improve the overall import speed and avoid race-conditions on import. The feature caused some issues and set to no. If you want to support testing, turn it to yes and report if you can reproduce the issue.

SQLite

<sqlite enabled="yes">

Defines the SQLite storage driver section.

enabled="yes"

• Optional

• Default: yes

Below are the sqlite driver options:

<init-sql-file>/etc/gerbera/sqlite3.sql</init-sql-file>

• Optional

• Default: Datadir / sqlite3.sql

The full path to the init script for the database

<upgrade-file>/etc/gerbera/sqlite3-upgrade.xml</upgrade-file>

• Optional

• Default: Datadir / sqlite3-upgrade.xml

The full path to the upgrade settings for the database

<database-file>gerbera.db</database-file>

• Optional

• Default: gerbera.db

The database location is relative to the server’s home, if the sqlite database does not exist it will be created automatically.

<synchronous>off</synchronous>

• Optional

• Default: off

Possible values are off, normal, full and extra.

This option sets the SQLite pragma synchronous. This setting will affect the performance of the database write operations. For more information about this option see the SQLite documentation: https://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_synchronous

<journal-mode>off</journal-mode>

• Optional

• Default: WAL

Possible values are OFF, DELETE, TRUNCATE, PERSIST, MEMORY and WAL

This option sets the SQLite pragma journal_mode. This setting will affect the performance of the database write operations. For more information about this option see the SQLite documentation: https://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_journal_mode

<on-error>restore</on-error>

• Optional

• Default: restore

Possible values are restore and fail.

This option tells Gerbera what to do if an SQLite error occurs (no database or a corrupt database). If it is set to restore it will try to restore the database from a backup file (if one exists) or try to recreate a new database from scratch.

If the option is set to fail, Gerbera will abort on an SQLite error.

<backup enabled="no" interval="15:00"/>

• Optional

Backup parameters:

enabled=...

• Optional

• Default: no

Enables or disables database backup.

interval=...

• Optional

• Default: 600

Defines the backup interval in seconds. The value can be given in a valid time format.

MySQL

<mysql enabled="no"/>

Defines the MySQL storage driver section.

enabled=...

• Optional

• Default: no

Enables or disables the MySQL driver.

Below are the child tags for MySQL:

<host>localhost</host>

• Optional

• Default: “localhost”

This specifies the host where your MySQL database is running.

<port>0</port>

• Optional

• Default: 0

This specifies the port where your MySQL database is running.

<username>root</username>

• Optional

• Default: “gerbera”

This option sets the user name that will be used to connect to the database.

<password></password>

• Optional

• Default: no password

Defines the password for the MySQL user. If the tag doesn’t exist Gerbera will use no password, if the tag exists, but is empty Gerbera will use an empty password. MySQL has a distinction between no password and an empty password.

<database>gerbera</database>

• Optional

• Default: “gerbera”

Name of the database that will be used by Gerbera.

<init-sql-file>/etc/gerbera/mysql.sql</init-sql-file>

• Optional

• Default: Datadir / mysql.sql

The full path to the init script for the database

<upgrade-file>/etc/gerbera/mysql-upgrade.xml</upgrade-file>

• Optional

• Default: Datadir / mysql-upgrade.xml

The full path to the upgrade settings for the database

upnp

<upnp multi-value="yes" search-result-separator=" : ">

• Optional

Modify the settings for UPnP items.

This section defines the properties which are send to UPnP clients as part of the response.

Attributes

searchable-container-flag="yes"

• Optional

• Default: “no”

Only return containers that have the flag searchable set.

literal-host-redirection="yes"

• Optional

• Default: “no”

Enable literal IP redirection.

search-result-separator=" : "

• Optional

• Default: ” - “

String used to concatenate result segments as defined in search-item-result

multi-value="no"

• Optional

• Default: yes

Enables sending multi-valued metadata in separate items. If set to no all values are concatenated by CFG_IMPORT_LIBOPTS_ENTRY_SEP. Otherwise each item is added separately.

• Example:

  The follow data is sent if set to no

  <upnp:artist>First Artist / Second Artist</upnp:artist>
  

  The follow data is sent if set to yes

  <upnp:artist>First Artist</upnp:artist>
  <upnp:artist>Second Artist</upnp:artist>
  

search-filename="yes"

• Optional

• Default: no

Older versions of gerbera have been searching in the file name instead of the title metadata. If set to yes this behaviour is back, even if the result of the search shows another title.

caption-info-count="0"

• Optional

• Default: 1

Number of sec::CaptionInfoEx entries to write to UPnP result. Default can be overwritten by clients setting.

Child tags:

<search-item-result>
    <add-data tag="M_ARTIST"/>
    <add-data tag="M_TITLE"/>
</search-item-result>

• Optional

Set the meta-data search tags to use in search result for title. The default settings as shown above produces artist - title in the result list.

<album-properties>...</album-properties>
<artist-properties>...</artist-properties>
<genre-properties>...</genre-properties>
<playlist-properties>...</playlist-properties>
<title-properties>...</title-properties>

• Optional

Defines the properties to send in the response.

It contains the following entries.

<upnp-namespace xmlns="gerbera" uri="https://gerbera.io"/>
<upnp-property upnp-tag="gerbera:artist" meta-data="M_ARTIST"/>

• Optional

Defines an UPnP property and references the namespace for the property.

The attributes specify the property:

xmlns="..."

• Required

Key for the namespace

uri="..."

• Required

Uri for the namespace

upnp-tag="..."

• Required

UPnP tag to be send. See the UPnP specification for valid entries.

meta-data="..."

• Required

Name of the metadata tag to export in upnp response. The following values are supported: M_TITLE, M_ARTIST, M_ALBUM, M_DATE, M_UPNP_DATE, M_GENRE, M_DESCRIPTION, M_LONGDESCRIPTION, M_PARTNUMBER, M_TRACKNUMBER, M_ALBUMARTURI, M_REGION, M_CREATOR, M_AUTHOR, M_DIRECTOR, M_PUBLISHER, M_RATING, M_ACTOR, M_PRODUCER, M_ALBUMARTIST, M_COMPOSER, M_CONDUCTOR, M_ORCHESTRA.

Instead of metadata, you may also use auxdata entries as defined in library-options.

Defaults:

• Album-Properties

upnp-tag	meta-data
dc:creator	M_ALBUMARTIST
dc:date	M_UPNP_DATE
dc:publisher	M_PUBLISHER
upnp:artist	M_ALBUMARTIST
upnp:albumArtist	M_ALBUMARTIST
upnp:composer	M_COMPOSER
upnp:conductor	M_CONDUCTOR
upnp:date	M_UPNP_DATE
upnp:genre	M_GENRE
upnp:orchestra	M_ORCHESTRA
upnp:producer	M_PRODUCER

• Artist-Properties

upnp-tag	meta-data
upnp:artist	M_ALBUMARTIST
upnp:albumArtist	M_ALBUMARTIST
upnp:genre	M_GENRE

• Genre-Properties

upnp-tag	meta-data
upnp:genre	M_GENRE

• Playlist-Properties

upnp-tag	meta-data
dc:date	M_UPNP_DATE

• Title-Properties

The title properties are automatically added and cannot be changed, but you may add them under another tag.

upnp-tag	meta-data
dc:date	M_DATE
dc:description	M_DESCRIPTION
dc:publisher	M_PUBLISHER
dc:title	M_TITLE
upnp:actor	M_ACTOR
upnp:album	M_ALBUM
upnp:albumArtURI	M_ALBUMARTURI
upnp:artist	M_ARTIST
upnp:artist@role[AlbumArtist]	M_ALBUMARTIST
upnp:author	M_AUTHOR
upnp:composer	M_COMPOSER
upnp:conductor	M_CONDUCTOR
upnp:date	M_UPNP_DATE
upnp:director	M_DIRECTOR
upnp:episodeSeason	M_PARTNUMBER
upnp:genre	M_GENRE
upnp:longDescription	M_LONGDESCRIPTION
upnp:orchestra	M_ORCHESTRA
upnp:originalTrackNumber	M_TRACKNUMBER
upnp:producer	M_PRODUCER
upnp:rating	M_RATING
upnp:region	M_REGION
upnp:playbackCount	upnp:playbackCount
upnp:lastPlaybackTime	upnp:lastPlaybackTime
upnp:lastPlaybackPosition	upnp:lastPlaybackPosition

containers

<containers enabled="yes">

• Optional

Add dynamic containers to virtual layout.

This section sets the rules for additional containers which have calculated content.

Attributes:

enabled=...

• Optional

• Default: yes

Enables or disables the dynamic containers driver.

Child tags:

<container location="/New" title="Recently added" sort="-last_updated" max-count="500">
    <filter>upnp:class derivedfrom "object.item" and last_updated &gt; "@last7"</filter>
</container>

• Optional

Defines the properties of the dynamic container.

It contains the following entries.

<filter>upnp:class derivedfrom "object.item" and last_updated &gt; "@last7"</filter>

• Required

Filter to run to get the contents of the container. It uses the syntax of UPnP search with additional properties last_modified and last_updated. It also support comparing against a special value "@last*" where * can be any integer which evaluates to the current time minus the number of days as specified.

location="..."

• Required

Position in the virtual layout where the node is added. If it is in a sub-container, e.g. /Audio/New, it only becomes visible if the import generates the parent container.

title="..."

• Optional

Text to display as title of the container. If it is empty the last section of the location is used.

sort="..."

• Optional

UPnP sort statement to use as sorting criteria for the container.

max-count="200"

• Optional

Limit the number of item in dynamic container. * Default: 500

image="..."

• Optional

Path to an image to display for the container. It still depends on the client whether the image becomes visible.