Remote Mapping - nosmokingbandit/watcher GitHub Wiki

Remote Mapping allows Watcher to have access to files and folders on a remote server. This is useful if Watcher is not running on the same computer as your download client. Remote mapping allows Watcher to post process files that it would otherwise not be able to access.

Watcher will need access to both the download directory and target directory if you enabled moving in settings/postprocessing.

In settings/postprocessing you may configure multiple remotely mapped paths.

The Remote Path

This is the directory on the computer on which your download client runs. The remote path you select needs to be the download directory or one of its parent folders.

For example, let's say your download client saves Watcher downloads in /home/username/downloads/movies/Watcher/. You can choose any directory in that tree to remotely map. It is generally safer to map the highest folder possible, but in this case we can choose /home/username/, /home/username/downloads/, /home/username/downloads/, or /home/username/downloads/movies/Watcher/.

This directory will need to be accessible from your Watcher computer via network share. You can do this with Samba, NFS, CIFS, or a similar sharing protocol. Ensure that the Watcher computer has write access to this share.

Linux operating systems typically share home folders, so for this example I'm going to use /home/username/

The Local Path

This is the path of the network share on the computer on which Watcher runs. The exact path structure will vary slightly depending on your operating system.

In this example, my Watcher computer will be running Windows 10. I am connected to my download client computer's share and can access it via Explorer, and I've confirmed that I can write to the share.

My server's name is DownloadPC, which makes my share \\DownloadPC\username\. Windows paths use back-slashes, but are compatible with forward-slashes, which the rest of the computing world uses, so we are going to use the path //DownloadPC/username/ and enter that into Watcher.

Explanation

Using the example above, my download client will tell Watcher that the completed download is in /home/username/downloads/movies/Watcher/Night.of.the.Living.Dead/, but the Watcher computer doesn't have that path.

Using remote mapping, Watcher turns that directory into //DownloadPC/username/downloads/movies/Watcher/Night.of.the.Living.Dead/, which it can easily access over my Samba share.

If Watcher is to move the completed movie to a sub-directory of //DownloadPC/username/downloads/ you do not need to specifically add it, only the parent needs to be mapped.

However, if Watcher is to move the movie to a directory such as /media/usb1/movies you will need to share that directory (or its parent) and map it in Watcher as well.

In the moving settings you need not specific the local path for the destination. You may use either /home/username/downloads/movies/{title} ({year})/ or //DownloadPC/username/downloads/movies/{title} ({year})/

Important details

It is critical that the paths' endpoints match. Had we instead mapped the remote path /home/username/downloads/movies/ we would need to use the local path //DownloadPC/username/downloads/movies/.

Ensure that both paths end with or without a trailing slash. //DownloadPC/username/:/home/username/ OR //DownloadPC/username:/home/username. Do not use //DownloadPC/username/:/home/username.