# Servers, phones and cameras

> Type a server’s address and Skwir opens it as a folder, through a tool you already have. The servers your network announces, and the phones and cameras you plug in, are in the sidebar, and copies to and from them go in batches.

Page: https://skwir.org/docs/servers-phones-and-cameras

Skwir speaks no network protocol and keeps no password of its own. A server’s folder is one that a tool you have installed mounts (sshfs, GVfs, KIO’s kio-fuse, rclone, or a line of your fstab), and Skwir shows it as a folder it knows is remote, with the same views and previews as any other.

## Open a server

Type its address in the address bar (Ctrl+L) and press Enter:

| Address | Opens |
| --- | --- |
| `sftp://me@host/` | A machine you reach with ssh |
| `smb://nas/share` | A Windows share, or a NAS’s |
| `dav://host/path`, `davs://host/path` | A WebDAV share |
| `ftp://host/`, `ftps://host/` | An FTP server |
| `nfs://host/export` | An NFS export |
| `afp://host/volume` | An older Mac’s share |
| `s3://bucket/`, `s3://profile@bucket/` | An S3 bucket, through your own AWS configuration |
| `rclone://remote/` | Any of rclone’s remotes |

While it connects, the pane says *Opening …*, with **Cancel**. The address completes the servers Skwir knows and the hosts of your ssh configuration.

Skwir tries the tools in the order *Settings › Network › Opening addresses* gives, among those installed: sshfs, kmtp (for a phone KDE holds), GVfs, KIO (before GVfs on KDE Plasma), rclone, then your fstab. On KDE Plasma, `smb://`, `dav://` and `ftp://` open through KIO, with KDE’s own dialogs. GVfs works wherever it is installed, even when nothing has started it yet.

### What to install

Each tool opens its own kinds of address; install those you need. The `skwir` package suggests them all.

| Tool | Opens | Debian and Ubuntu | Fedora | Arch |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| sshfs | `sftp://`, through your ssh | `sshfs` | `fuse-sshfs` | `sshfs` |
| GVfs | `smb://`, `dav://`, `ftp://`, `nfs://`, `afp://`, phones, cameras and iPhones | `gvfs-backends`, `gvfs-fuse` | `gvfs-fuse`, `gvfs-smb`, `gvfs-nfs`, `gvfs-afp`, `gvfs-mtp`, `gvfs-gphoto2`, `gvfs-afc` | `gvfs`, `gvfs-smb`, `gvfs-nfs`, `gvfs-mtp`, `gvfs-gphoto2`, `gvfs-afc` |
| kio-fuse | `smb://`, `dav://` and `ftp://` through KIO, on KDE Plasma | `kio-fuse` | `kio-fuse` | `kio-fuse` |
| rclone | rclone’s remotes, `s3://`, and cloud storage | `rclone` | `rclone` | `rclone` |
| rsync | Faster copies to and from SFTP servers | `rsync` | `rsync` | `rsync` |
| FUSE 3 | rclone’s mounts, and phones KDE holds | `fuse3` | `fuse3` | `fuse3` |
| Avahi | Nearby: a NAS, a Mac | `avahi-daemon` | `avahi` | `avahi` |
| wsdd | Nearby: Windows PCs | `wsdd` | `wsdd` | `wsdd` |

> **Note:** Remote folders were tried against servers run on one machine, a phone and a camera, not every server and network. If one doesn’t open as it should, [tell us](https://github.com/skwir-org/skwir/issues) which server, and through which tool.

## Passwords and keys

- **A password** is asked in the window, and so is ssh’s question about a server it has never seen. **Remember** keeps the password in your desktop’s keyring; a password Nautilus remembered is used too. **Forget Password**, in the server’s menu, removes it.
- On KDE Plasma, KIO asks with KDE’s own dialogs, and uses the passwords KDE keeps.
- **Set Up Key Login…**, in an SFTP server’s menu, puts a key of yours on the server over one login: no password is asked after that.

## The Network section

The sidebar’s **Network** section lists every server, mounted or not: those you added, rclone’s remotes, and GVfs’s and KDE’s. A server that is connected shows how full it is.

- **Add Server…**, in the section’s menu or in *Settings › Network*, adds any kind. A server by its address is kept in Skwir’s own list or, on KDE Plasma, in KDE’s network folders, which Dolphin shows too. One of rclone’s remotes (a cloud storage, an encrypted remote over another, a union of several) is set up in forms made from what rclone asks, with a sign-in through your browser where a cloud needs one. rclone’s configuration can be encrypted, its password kept in your keyring.
- **Keep as Server** turns a bookmark of a server into one.
- A server’s menu has **Mount Options…** (read only, rclone’s cache, bandwidth), **Connect at Login** (through your system’s service manager, for a server that asks nothing at login), **Set Up Key Login…**, **Sign In Again…**, **Test**, **Edit** and **Remove**. *Settings › Network* lists every server, with the same actions.
- **Eject**, on a server’s row, lets go of it, even one that no longer answers.

### Nearby

At the end of the Network section, **Nearby** lists the servers your network announces: a NAS, a Mac, a Windows PC. Avahi and wsdd find them while you look at the list, and only then. A server’s menu adds it to your servers.

## Phones and cameras

- A phone plugged in for file transfer (MTP), a camera or a phone in its photos mode, and an iPhone are listed among the drives as soon as GVfs offers them. Opening one mounts it; plugging it in never does.
- A phone that another program holds (KDE’s kiod6) says so, and which. On KDE Plasma, a phone KDE holds opens through KDE itself, by Skwir’s phone helper, which needs FUSE (`fusermount3`). Disconnecting it lets go of Skwir’s folder, never of KDE’s hold.
- Copying onto a camera, or a phone in its photos mode, writes the files in place.

## In a server’s folder

- **Thumbnails** show where the server is on your local network, and for small files elsewhere once a copy from it proved it fast. The server’s menu, or *Settings › Folders and views › Thumbnails in remote folders*, chooses otherwise.
- **Previews** read each file once, and the file shown before is kept for a minute in case you come back to it.
- **A server that stops answering** says so above its files, with **Go Back** and **Disconnect**, and holds nothing else up.
- Delete there deletes for good, and asks first: nothing on a server goes to this machine’s Trash.
- **Finding**: the folder is filtered as you type, as anywhere; a search of its subfolders waits for Enter ([Searching](https://skwir.org/docs/searching)).
- **rclone’s mounts** keep what they read. A copy onto one ends only once the server has it, and a file another program left to send says so on its place (*Sending 1 file to the server…*).

## Copies to and from a server

- **In batches**: through rsync over the ssh connection, sftp or gio where those are faster, several files at once. A large file comes down in several parts at once, and a copy within one server is made on the server (through rclone’s own copy too, where its storage can). Many files are deleted there in one go. On KDE Plasma, copies to and from KDE’s remotes go several at once through KIO’s own tool.
- **Speed and time left** show in the footer as the copy goes ([What runs](https://skwir.org/docs/organising-files#what-runs)). Onto a mount that sends what is copied afterwards, such as rclone’s caches, it first says *then sent to the server*, then the sending’s own speed and time left.
- **Retry**: an action a server stopped is retried from where it stopped, with **Retry** in its message, and goes on by itself once the server answers again. A large file goes on from what got across; a folder keeps the files it had finished.
- **Undo** works on a server that keeps no trash: what a copy made is removed, while it is unchanged. A copy the server refuses as it finishes is said to have failed, and a move then keeps its original.

> **Tip:** An agent’s call connects to a server only once you allow it in the window ([What an agent may do](https://skwir.org/docs/scripts-and-agents#what-an-agent-may-do)).