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content/posts/connecting-kodi-to-nginx-media-index/index.md

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+title = "Connecting Kodi to Nginx media index"
+date = 2022-10-19
+
+[taxonomies]
+categories = ["Linux"]
+
+[extra]
+author = "Emil Miler"
++++
+
+Connecting Kodi to network media storage can be cumbersome to setup, especially with NFS. This setup uses simple HTTP and Nginx instead.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+Assuming that Kodi is installed and connected to our network and we have a server with Nginx. We just need to expose our media storage with auto-indexing enabled. This might seem insecure, but we are only exposing things to our internal trusted network. Never let any untrusted devices into your subnet -- which should go without saying.
+
+## Nginx
+
+I am using Nginx as a reverse proxy to other services and media directories, so I have to deal with different locations. Simple configuration could look like this.
+
+```
+server {
+	listen 80 default_server;
+	listen [::]:80 default_server;
+
+	server_name server.local 192.168.1.10;
+	root /srv/www/default;
+	index index.html;
+
+	charset UTF-8;
+
+	location / {
+		try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
+	}
+
+	location /films {
+		alias /srv/media/films;
+		autoindex on;
+	}
+
+	location /shows {
+		alias /srv/media/shows;
+		autoindex on;
+	}
+}
+```
+
+Make sure to set `charset UTF-8;` to enable special characters. I use both mDNS *server.local* and IP address for VPN access and because Alpine clients do not support mDNS address resolution due to musl limitations.
+
+After reloading Nginx, the file index should be available at both:
+
+- `http://server.local/films`
+- `http://192.168.1.10/films`
+
+## Kodi
+
+We can now add a new share in Kodi and select a custom network location, which lets us choose from many different protocols.
+
+![](kodi-browse-for-new-share.png)
+
+Simply select HTTP, set your server address and set the remote path to the desired endpoint. The address can be the mDNS hostname, if your client supports address resolution.
+
+![](kodi-add-network-location.png)
+
+## Conclusion
+
+That's it, extremely simple and read-only media share. I recommend managing your library with something that can generate `movie.nfo` for each film -- for example [Radarr](https://radarr.video/) -- and turn off metadata fetching from the Internet. Parsing files and other metadata -- including images -- will be quite snappy.