Sftp (ssh) with auth file (no password)

  • Hi,

    I'm trying LibreElec for some days now and I've to say that I'm very happy ! Thanks to all of you. I like the simplicity of the system, the ability to use systemd to make my own services, Docker, etc. The system is simple yet extensible.

    But I'm playing videos from a private server. This server is only accessible via ssh (no FTP, SFTP, etc), and only with an identity file (no password auth).

    • first I've used a systemd service that mounted this remote directory on a local directory using `sshfs`
      • but this has the big disadvantage of let Kodi think this directory was a normal directory and there were 2 drawbacks:
        • when the server is off Kodi becomes non responsive for a long time (some minutes), probably waiting for the system to list files on this directory, without any timeout
        • I had buffering issues that I didn't solved by tweaking advancedsettings.xml files
    • today I got the solution from http://here
      • putted my ssh identity files in `/storage/.ssh`
      • used the sshfs plugin with
        • correct username
        • no password
      • surprisingly the plugin uses root ssh keys to identify an user with another name

    I can't test video streaming now but at least I can browse distant files :)

    Edited once, last by brunetton (December 26, 2020 at 10:34 PM).

  • After some weekd of testing, I'm back to my first solution: `sshfs` mount. I don't know why but sftp method is not usable on big files (files that needs buffering): Kodi freeze for a while then come back to file list.
    In contrary the buffering is doing well with sshfs mount.