You can connect with a Portico Account or sign in directly to a server account.
What each side knows
- Portico Services manage Portico Accounts, server membership and signed connection information.
- Your Portico Server manages its media, local permissions, playback and server settings.
Connect with a Portico Account
When an authorized app opens a server, it obtains short-lived signed connection information, checks the server’s identity and opens a session for that server. At home it can use a verified local route; away from home it needs a reachable remote route.
Connect directly
A server account can sign in at that server’s address without a Portico Account. Portico Web bundled with the server already knows its address. It offers server account username-and-password sign-in when the server keeps sign-in local; a linked server’s start page offers Portico Account sign-in and owner recovery instead. In a native app, enter the address and use the server account. See Connect a Portico app.
Direct sign-in also works away from home when the address is reachable and the owner’s outside sign-in policy allows it. A server account isn’t automatically a Portico Account or an entry in its server list.
Where your media travels
Media and server-specific API requests go directly between the app and your Portico Server. Portico Services don’t relay, tunnel, cache or inspect your private media.
The server has the final say
Your server makes the final access decision, including for a request that started with a Portico Account. Membership through a Portico Account can’t grant a library or action that the server doesn’t allow.