File sharing on Starling

Starling’s files service owns file metadata, access checks, and signed URLs. Keep it enabled and give clients a reachable public URL. The shipped Compose deployment supplies the matching HTTP path; a custom deployment must supply its file delivery endpoint.

Configure the endpoint

Set public_url under [services.files] to the address users can reach. A loopback address works only for clients on the server machine. Use HTTPS when exposing the endpoint publicly, and keep the reverse proxy’s upload limit compatible with max_upload.

[services.files]
public_url = "https://files.example.com"
max_upload = "512MiB"
url_ttl = "15m"

Use the Starling configuration reference for the complete schema and the Compose deployment for a working stack.

Access and testing

Channel permissions determine which sharing modes a user can choose. Test uploads and downloads from a second client outside the server’s network. A successful upload on localhost does not prove that another member can reach its download URL.

See Files and images for the client workflow. Back up the file storage together with its service database; a database backup alone does not preserve uploaded bytes.