NAME

parados — simple HTTP media server

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

parados is a minimal HTTP media server for serving local audio and video files over a network. It exposes a HTTP interface intended for use by external clients such as media players or web frontends.

The server scans a directory tree at startup and exposes the contents through a simple HTTP API. Each file is assigned an identifier derived from its relative path.

parados does not provide a user interface; all interaction is expected to happen through clients.

OPTIONS

-v

Print version information and exit.

OPERATION

On startup, parados performs the following steps:

1. Load configuration from PARADOS_CONFIG if set, otherwise /etc/parados.conf or, if not present, ./parados.conf.
2. Parse user and access rules.
3. Scan the configured media directory and build the media library.
4. Bind to the configured address and port.
5. Accept and handle HTTP requests.

Each incoming connection is handled independently in its own thread. The maximum number of concurrent clients is limited by the max_clients configuration option.

Connections are closed after each request.

LOGGING

parados writes diagnostic and status messages to standard error.

Logging verbosity is controlled by the verbose_log setting in parados.conf(5).

HTTP INTERFACE

The HTTP interface is documented in parados(7).

AUTHENTICATION

Authentication is optional and configured through parados.conf(5).

If no users are defined, all requests are served without authentication. If one or more users are defined, HTTP Basic authentication is required for all endpoints except /ping.

Access to media files is restricted per user based on configured allow-lists.

LIBRARY MANAGEMENT

The media library is scanned at startup.

If authentication is enabled, the library may be rescanned at runtime by issuing a request to the /rescan endpoint.

EXIT STATUS

The parados utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

parados.conf(5), parados(7)

AUTHORS

Abhinav Prasai