5. Command Line Options

There is a number of options that can be passed via command line upon server start up, for a short summary you can invoke MediaTomb with the following parameter:

$ mediatomb --help

Note:

the command line options override settings in the configuration file!

5.1. IP Address

--ip or -i

The server will bind to the given IP address, currently we can not bind to multiple interfaces so binding to 0.0.0.0 will not be possible.
5.2. Interface

--interface or -e

Interface to bind to, for example eth0, this can be specified instead of the ip address.
5.3. Port

--port or -p

Specify the server port that will be used for the web user interface, for serving media and for UPnP requests, minimum allowed value is 49152. If this option is omitted a default port will be chosen, however, in this case it is possible that the port will change upon server restart.
5.4. Configuration File

--config or -c

By default MediaTomb will search for a file named “config.xml” in the ~/.mediatomb directory. This option allows you to specify a config file by the name and location of your choice. The file name must be absolute.
5.5. Daemon Mode

--daemon or -d

Run the server in background, MediaTomb will shutdown on SIGTERM, SIGINT and restart on SIGHUP.
5.6. Home Directory

--home or -m

Specify an alternative home directory. By default MediaTomb will try to retrieve the users home directory from the environment, then it will look for a .mediatomb directory in users home. If .mediatomb was found we will try to find the default configuration file (config.xml), if not found we will create both, the .mediatomb directory and the default config file.

This option is useful in two cases: when the home directory can not be retrieved from the environment (in this case you could also use -c to point MediaTomb to your configuration file or when you want to create a new configuration in a non standard location (for example, when setting up daemon mode). In the latter case you can combine this parameter with the parameter described in Section 5.7, “Config Directory”
5.7. Config Directory

--cfgdir or -f

The default configuration directory is combined out of the users home and the default that equals to .mediatomb, this option allows you to override the default directory naming. This is useful when you want to setup the server in a nonstandard location, but want that the default configuration to be written by the server.
5.8. Write PID File

--pidfile or -P

Specify a file that will hold the server process ID, the filename must be absolute.
5.9. Run Under Different User Name

--user or -u

Run MediaTomb under the specified user name, this is especially useful in combination with the daemon mode.
5.10. Run Under Different Group

--group or -g

Run MediaTomb under the specified group, this is especially useful in combination with the daemon mode.
5.11. Add Content

--add or -a

Add the specified directory or file name to the database without UI interaction. The path must be absolute, if path is a directory then it will be added recursively. If path is a file, then only the given file will be imported.
5.12. Log To File

--logfile or -l

Do not output log messages to stdout, but redirect everything to a specified file.
5.13. Display Command Line Summary

--help or -h

Print a summary about the available command line options.