[forstera]

Hi everyone,

I work for a school and the direction asked me looking for a multimedia server for the teachers/students. I then installed Kodi on an Ubuntu Linux but, before continuing my pilot installation, I would like to know if it is possible to achieve the following features: 

1. I've a ldap server with all my students/teachers registered. What I would like to do is connecting Kodi to it for the authentication of user. Than, according to the fac that a user is a teacher or a student, I'd like to allow it some priviledges (for example, as a teacher, he would have the possibility to add a media (pic, movie, etc) into the database.

2.  is it a problem if, for example, 10 people is connected on the same time ? ( i've a HP server for the installation of Kodi and a NAS to store the multimedia files ; all the network is under 1 GB)

Thanks to all for your help
Arnaud

[Karellen]

@forstera

I cannot help with your specific questions, though @wsnipex should be able to.

Just to clarify, Kodi is not a media server. It is a media player designed to be directly connected, preferably via HDMI, to a TV/Monitor. It is not designed to run headless, though many users are able to.
It is possible to share libraries using a MySQL/Maria DB installation, but that is database sharing and Kodi still needs to be installed on devices connected to the displays.

Hope that helps in some way until you specific questions are answered.

[Klojum]

@forstera

1) What I would like to do is connecting Kodi to it for the authentication of user. Kodi is only a single user media player, it does not have built-in authentication functionality to the likes of LDAP. Each Kodi can connect separately to a secure WebDAV server for file sources, but the back-end will have to handle the grunt of the authentication on OS/server-level, and not on application-level.

2) The number of people connected to a media file server for streaming videos is not Kodi's problem. Assuming each student-teacher has his/her own Kodi player, it will be up to the school's file server and network to provide sufficient bandwidth for all connected people. The total bit rate of each video will determine the amount of concurrent users watching videos. So if everyone wants to watch a full-fledged 4K video, that number of viewers will be quite low. In optimum circumstances, a network speed of 1 gigabit/sec ~ 1,000 mbit/sec, would allow a simple video of 10 mbit/sec be watched roughly by 100 Kodi clients.

[forstera]

@Klojum 
Dear Klojum,
Thanks very much for your answer. Yes, after posting my request I continued to work on Kodi and realized what you said. As I don't plan to install Kodi on every computer, smartphone, etc  of the school and users I'll have to find another solution...

I know this is a Kodi forum but If someone has a idea on such solution ...  
Thanks to all for your help
 Arnaud

[MatteN]

At the school where i used to work they used Google Drive and everyone had Googleaccounts, maybe that would work for you aswell.

[forstera]

@MatteN 
Thanks very much for your answer.  I keep that in mind but we dont use Google Accounts here. I wanted to have a local solution to avoid network bottlenecks.

I'm looking now for a solution like Plesk or Jellyfin ...
thanks again for your help ; that's very kind

[MatteN]

We were around 500 users, staff had PC and laptops running Windows, Linux and some Mac's, students all had Chromebooks and cellphones. Google have lots of solutions for schools and learning.

[forstera]

@MatteN

thanks very much for this information I keep it in warm but ... our school has already office365 Accounts for both students and teachers. Anyway.. I'd like to have my own solution here in our lan.

Thanks very much

[Preacher]

Are you after a single-location player that can stream content out to multiple locations... or after a means of hosting content centrally where everyone has read-only access but only nominated accounts/groups have read/write?

Most devices can play from shared locations - so it's possible to point VLC or some mobile player at a multimedia location to access content, leaving you with the simpler problem of managing file permissions and deciding how that content will present itself to the consumer.

[forstera]

@Preacher
Thanks very much for your message,  
So yes, I'm looking for a solution where a single location player can stream content to multiple locations (classrooms) . Only teachers should be able to upload/play multimedia to/from the server. I don't know yet if students will be allowed to access the server..
Thanks very much for your help

[Preacher]

My thought would be some read-only NFS/samba share off a NAS that Kodi can connect to publicly.

Then create some accounts that allow specific staff read/write access to that content, so they can manage that storage (upload new files, remove older ones).  I'm guessing the problem you'll now have is trying to have central authentication to allow teachers RW access.

FWIW, I did something similar for a airforce base; everyone had public read-only access to a storage location, but another (restricted) share allowed certain people to change content - everyone could read from M: but only some people had X: mapped.

[forstera]

@Preacher 

I decided not to use Kodi because I can't install it on every computers, laptop etc .. of the school. Beside that, teachers are allowed to bring their own device so .. it would be to difficult to manage that.
The idea was founding a system where we can access via a http web pages to filter, search for multimedia files than play them on our own device to avoid transcoding ...
Anyway, thanks very much for your help and for sharing your experience

[wsnipex]

I'd use https://opencast.org/

[forstera]

@wsnipex

Thanks very much, I'll have a look on it

[Preacher]

I decided not to use Kodi because I can't install it on every computers, laptop etc .. of the school. Beside that, teachers are allowed to bring their own device

But that wasn't the suggestion, as mentioned with "Most devices can play from shared locations".

Your problem isn't adding a player to every device - simply making files available to people with devices that already have players.