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Remote access is a route to the server you already own. The library stays where it is, and you choose how to reach it from outside the house.
Choose a route
| Do it yourself | Managed relay | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A port forward, a reverse proxy or a private overlay network | Quven’s transport reaches your home server for linked clients |
| Cost | Free for personal use | Pro, Max and Lifetime |
| You handle | Certificates, firewall, DNS and bandwidth | Nothing inbound: it works behind NAT and carrier-grade NAT |
| Browser client at app.quven.tv | Not reachable | Reachable |
The relay doesn’t publish your server to the general internet. The media still leaves through your uplink, so your home upload speed stays the ceiling. The relay terminates transport encryption and can see media while it forwards it. It’s built to keep no record of what passes through, but that isn’t an opaque end-to-end tunnel.
Route 1: reach the server by address
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Publish the server yourself, with a port forward, a reverse proxy or an overlay network.
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In a native app, open the connect screen and choose Connect by address.
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Type a bare host or a full address:
192.168.1.50 https://quven.example.com
The browser client has no address field and port forwarding doesn’t add one: it signs you in to your Quven Account, lists the servers linked to it and dials the one you pick over the relay.
Route 2: turn on the relay
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Link the server to a Quven Account that has Pro, Max or Lifetime. Without the link, the card says “Remote Access requires a linked Quven Account with Pro, Max, or Lifetime.” and the switch won’t move.
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Open Settings, then the Account tab, then the Quven Account section, and switch on the Remote access card. It’s an administrator’s card, so nobody you’ve shared the server with can close your bridge.
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Or use the terminal:
quven remote-access on quven remote-access status
The card shows the state as Disabled, Connecting, Connected, Reconnecting or Failed. Last heartbeat appears once the signalling channel has produced a healthy one, so be wary of Connected over a heartbeat from an hour ago.
When the state is Failed, the bridge didn’t open. Check the account and the plan first, then the server log, which names the reason. The server tries again at its next check, so leave the switch on.
Test it from outside
Logging in only proves the account works. From a connection outside your network:
- Reconnect and seek.
- Resume a title.
- Hold one transcode long enough to mean something.
Your upload and the bandwidth at the far end can force a lower bitrate even when the client understands the codec. Automatic quality follows what the connection sustains, which is usually right away from home. Pick a quality by hand and the relay carries up to 2160p, as far as both connections allow.
Read the Active streams card
The Active streams card on the Activity tab shows a session as it plays. A relayed request reaches your server over loopback, so its chip reads Local · 127.0.0.1. Remote means an address outside your network reached the server directly, which is what your own route looks like from inside. For the state of the bridge, use the Remote access card. The Active streams card shows what the server does with the file.
Let somebody else watch
- Open accounts.quven.tv and go to the Servers section of the console.
- Invite one email address at a time, for one server at a time. The person needs a Quven Account of their own.
- Follow who watches from your servers, and which servers others shared with you, under People.
A guest signs in as themselves, with their own watch state and resume points, and is an ordinary user on your server: no libraries, no settings and no remote-access switch. A pending invitation holds its seat until it expires, and revoking access ends that guest’s sessions at once.
The plans page publishes how many guests each plan holds. Sharing works on every tier, but your guest still has to reach the machine. The share card says: “Guests can reach this server only on your own network or through remote access you configure yourself. Pro and higher plans add the managed relay, which reaches it from anywhere.”
Update status, checks, downloads and installation stay on the host: remote clients and the hosted web client neither show those controls nor invoke them.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need the relay if I already forward a port?
No. The native apps reach a published address exactly as they reach a LAN one, and none of that traffic passes through anything of ours. What a port forward doesn’t give you is the browser client at app.quven.tv, which dials linked servers over the relay and takes no address.
Why does a remote session say Local in Active streams?
The relay hands the request to your server from the machine itself, and the chip reports the address the server saw, which is loopback. The Remote access card tells you whether the bridge is up.
Can somebody I share my server with change anything on it?
No. A guest is an ordinary user of the server, so libraries, scans, settings and the remote-access switch are closed to them, and their resume points never land on your profile.
The card says Failed. What should I check first?
The account and the plan, then the log. A relay that refuses a server says which of the two is wrong instead of reporting the machine as offline, and the failed bridge attempt is logged with its reason on the server.
