¶ Connecting your recorder (SFTP, FTP, import from a NAS)
This page walks you through connecting a recorder that sends its footage to WebDisk CVR on its own — over SFTP, FTPS or FTP — and through a third option, where you send nothing at all, because the footage is already sitting in your storage and we simply show it to you. If you have UniFi Protect, a different route applies to you; we describe it in Connecting UniFi Protect.
¶ Which route to choose
| Route | When to choose it | Who sends the files |
|---|---|---|
| SFTP | Your recorder has "SFTP" in its menu. This is the default and recommended choice — the transfer is encrypted. | Your recorder |
| FTPS | Your recorder has no SFTP, but has "FTP with TLS" / "FTPS" (explicit). The transfer is encrypted. | Your recorder |
| FTP | Your recorder can do neither SFTP nor FTPS (typically older devices, and ones that only send JPEG stills). The transfer is not encrypted. | Your recorder |
| Import from a folder | The footage already reaches your storage — usually put there by a NAS that replicates the archive. | Nobody — the material is already there, we only index it |
💡 Order of preference: SFTP, then FTPS, FTP last. Switching routes later means adding the recorder again from scratch, with a new password.
¶ What reaches the archive — the recorder decides
CVR archives exactly what your recorder sends. Many recorders have no continuous upload over FTP/SFTP — they only send event clips (motion detection, alarm), and some only single JPEG stills. In that case the archive will hold those clips, not a full day of recording. The full archive, with no gaps between events, comes from UniFi Protect and from importing a NAS (below).
💡 One event can arrive as several files. Some recorders split the footage they send into fixed-size chunks (on the recorder we tested, about 5 MB — roughly a minute of video). A longer event then appears in the archive as several consecutive recordings from the same camera, one after another, rather than a single clip. Nothing is missing — only the file is split.
Before you buy, look through the recorder's menu: if FTP only appears as an event action (for example "Motion detection → FTP") rather than as a recording upload schedule, you will get event footage.
¶ Before you start
- Make sure your CVR subscription is active — without it the panel still works, but nothing will be archived.
- Connect your storage on the Storage tab. Footage goes into the storage you bought separately in WebDisk Files — see Storage for your footage.
- Turn on time synchronisation (NTP) in the recorder. The device clock decides where a recording lands on the timeline — a recorder whose clock runs a few minutes fast will place everything a few minutes late.
¶ Step by step: add the recorder in the panel
- Sign in at
cvr.webdisk.ioand go to Panel. - Open the Recorder tab and fill in the form: Recorder name (for example "Warehouse — gate"), optionally Make / model, and in the Protocol list choose
SFTP,FTPSorFTP. - Click Add recorder. The device is now described, but it is not working yet — it has no site and no storage assigned.
- Go to the Site tab. Create a site (for example "Shop, 3 Kwiatowa St.") and point it at your storage, or open a site you already have.
- Inside the site, pick your recorder from the Recorder at this site list and click Place here.
At that last moment the thing you have been waiting for happens: the recorder is given storage, a folder of its own and an upload account. The panel then shows you a window with the credentials.
⚠️ The recorder only starts working after step 5. For as long as it sits in the unassigned list, no upload account exists.
¶ The details you receive — and the password shown once
After you click Place here, you will see a card titled Settings for the recorder.
| Field in the panel | What it is | Where you use it |
|---|---|---|
| Server | The name of the server your recorder should send files to | The "Server" / "Server address" field in the recorder |
| Server IP address | The same server, given as an IP address | Only when the recorder does not accept a name ("Enter a valid IP address") |
| Port | 2022 for SFTP, 2121 for FTPS and FTP | The "Port" field |
| Protocol | SFTP, FTPS or FTP — the one you chose |
The protocol selector in the recorder |
| Connection mode | passive — FTPS and FTP only | The "PASV" / "Passive mode" option |
| User | The login of the account created for this one device (16 characters) | The "Username" field |
| Password | 16 characters, randomly generated: letters, digits and one of the symbols - _ .; it starts with a letter or digit — so that every recorder accepts it |
The "Password" field |
Ports 2022 and 2121 are not the defaults (22 and 21), so your recorder will not fill them in by itself — copy them from the panel.
🔴 We show the password once and we do not keep it. We store it in no form that could be read back, so neither we nor you can recover it. Before you click I have written it down, enter it in your recorder or save it in a password manager.
¶ You have lost the password — what now
There is no second chance to see the password. The only way forward is to create the account again:
- Inside the site, click Delete next to that recorder. In the confirmation window, do not tick the option to delete footage from storage — the existing material should stay.
- Add the recorder once more (the Recorder tab) and place it at the same site.
- Copy the new credentials into the recorder.
What happens to the existing archive in the meantime: the files stay in your storage, but the new recorder writes to a new folder, so in the panel you will only see material sent from that moment on. The older part of the archive also stops being covered by automatic space reclamation — it sits in storage and takes up the capacity you paid for until you delete it yourself in WebDisk Files. If you need access to it from the panel, write to us using Report a problem in the panel.
¶ Where to enter these details in the recorder
Menu names differ between brands, but the layout is nearly always the same: look for Network → FTP or Storage → FTP, labelled "Upload" or "Auto Backup" by some manufacturers. Inside, fill in:
| Field in the recorder | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Server / Host | The Server from the panel; if the recorder only accepts an IP address — the Server IP address |
| Port | 2022 (SFTP) or 2121 (FTPS and FTP) |
| Type / Protocol | SFTP, FTPS or FTP — exactly the one you chose in the panel. For FTPS: explicit mode, not implicit (port 990) |
| Username | The User from the panel |
| Password | The Password from the panel |
| Remote directory / Path | leave it empty, or enter / |
| Passive mode (PASV) — FTPS and FTP | on |
| What to send | recordings (and stills, if you want them in the archive) |
Finally, save the settings — and only then use the Test / Check connection button, if your recorder has one.
⚠️ The Test button does not save the settings. A green test without pressing Apply (or Save) means the device is still using the previous details: nothing will appear in the archive, and nothing will explain why. If your recorder has separate Test and Apply buttons, press both.
A few things worth knowing before you go looking for a fault where there isn't one:
- Leave the remote directory empty. The account is confined to a folder of its own — once logged in, the recorder sees only its own space and has no access to anything outside it. Entering a path of your own simply creates a subfolder.
- An account works with one protocol only. An account created for FTP will not log in over SFTP, and vice versa. If you pick a different protocol in the recorder than you did in the panel, the login will be rejected even with the correct password.
- The account can only upload and see the list of its own files. It cannot download or delete anything from your storage. That is deliberate: a password leaking from the recorder does not give access to your archive. Some recorders need the file list to enter a folder before uploading.
- FTPS: enter the name in the server field, not the IP address. The certificate is issued for the name. A recorder that only accepts an IP address will establish FTPS only if it does not check the certificate — if the connection fails, choose SFTP.
- FTPS and FTP need passive mode and outbound connections on ports 50000–50100. The symptom of a badly set passive mode is misleading: the login succeeds, and then the transfer hangs on the first file.
- Camera name. When the file name looks like
channel_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS(for examplechannel01_20260918_152622.h264), the camera is the channel from the name. When your recorder saves files ascamera/date/file, you will see the camera name from the folder. In other cases the Camera column stays empty — the footage is still visible. - Recording time. When the file name contains a date and time (
YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS), we take the recording time from the name — that is the recorder's clock, converted from its time zone, which is why NTP matters. Names we cannot decode are not guessed at: the recording is placed on the timeline at the moment the file arrived in storage.
¶ Plain FTP — let us be blunt
FTP is not encrypted. Both the account password and the footage itself travel across the network in clear text, and anyone with access to that path can read them. We enable this route deliberately, because some recorders cannot do SFTP and refusing would cut those devices out of the service — but we are not pretending it is safe.
What we do to limit the damage:
- the FTP account can only upload and see the list of its own files — it cannot download or delete footage,
- the account is confined to the folder of that one recorder,
- the account will not log in over any other protocol.
What that does not fix: the content of the recordings and the password still travel unencrypted — and because the account can see the list of its files, anyone who intercepts the password can log in with it from anywhere and see the list of every file this recorder has sent over the whole retention period, with file names that usually reveal the camera and the time of the event. The decision is yours, at the point where you choose the protocol in the panel — and it is you who judges whether it is acceptable for your data. If your recorder can do SFTP or FTPS, there is no reason to choose FTP.
¶ Importing from a folder your NAS writes to
Choose this route when the footage already reaches your storage — most often because the recorder dumps it onto a NAS, and the NAS replicates it into your storage in WebDisk Files. You are not reconfiguring a working installation: you point us at a folder, we index it and give you an archive browser.
How to add it:
- On the Recorder tab, choose Material already in storage (NAS) in the Protocol list.
- In the Prefix in the bucket field, enter the folder the footage sits in, for example
monitoring/2026/. This field is required — without it we have nothing to index. - Click Add recorder, then place it at a site with the Place here button.
- Next to the recorder, click Reindex so that you do not have to wait for the next scan.
How this route differs from the others:
| SFTP / FTP | Import from a folder | |
|---|---|---|
| Who puts the files into storage | we do, from what the recorder sends | you do (your NAS) |
| Our rights to that folder | write | read only |
| Do we reclaim space by deleting the oldest footage | yes | no |
| Do we delete files when a recorder is removed | only at your explicit request | never |
⚠️ We never delete imported material — not even when storage fills up. You will still get the same warning email about space running out, but the decision on what to do about it is yours. We describe how space reclamation works in Retention and storage space.
If your NAS changes the folder it keeps footage in, add a new recorder pointing at the new path — we do not move files and we do not change the structure of your folders.
¶ Footage is not appearing in the panel
Start with what takes a second:
- Click "Reindex" next to the recorder, inside the site. We scan the archive automatically every 10 minutes, so a freshly delivered file may simply still be waiting for the next pass. When it finishes you will see the message "Indexed. New recordings: …". If there is a great deal of material — typically on the first import from a NAS — one click may not cover all of it. Click again: we carry on from where we stopped, not from the beginning.
If that did not help, check these in order:
- Is the recorder placed at a site? A device in the unassigned list is only a description of hardware — it has no account and nowhere to write.
- Does the site have storage attached? The site card must name a storage, and that storage must be verified. If it is not, the panel shows an unverified label next to it.
- Has ingest been suspended? When storage fills up and its settings do not let us reclaim space, you will see ingest suspended next to the storage. Enlarge the storage in WebDisk Files and ingest will resume by itself. Details: Retention and storage space.
- Is the recorder sending anything at all? Look at its log or upload status. The most common reasons for rejection are the wrong port (2022 rather than 22, 2121 rather than 21), a different protocol than the one chosen in the panel, and a password copied out with a typo.
- On FTP and FTPS: login works, the transfer stalls. This is almost always passive mode — turn PASV on in the recorder and allow outbound traffic on ports 50000–50100 through your router.
Recordings are there, but in the wrong place on the timeline? Check the recorder's clock and turn on NTP — we take the time from the file name, that is from the device clock. - Empty files are skipped. A zero-length file is the trace of an interrupted write, so we do not let it into the archive — a recording that cannot be played would be worse than none at all.
- On a NAS import: is the path definitely right? The folder you entered must match, character for character, what you see in WebDisk Files. A typo produces exactly this symptom: an empty archive with no error at all.
Still empty? Write to us with the Report a problem button in the panel, giving the site name, the recorder name and the approximate time the recording should have arrived.
¶ What this service does not do
- It does not replace your recorder. CVR is a second copy kept off site; your recorder still records locally and remains the primary place where footage is stored.
- We do not retry uploads on your recorder's behalf. On the SFTP and FTP routes, the device decides when and what it sends. If it has no retry queue of its own — and most recorders do not — the material from the window when the link was down will never reach the archive. It is worth checking this in your device's menu before you roll the service out.
- We do not turn event uploads into continuous recording. We archive what the recorder sends — if it only sends motion clips, those are all the archive will hold.
- We do not transcode footage. MP4 files play straight in the panel; raw
.h264/.h265streams, which some recorders send, and formats the browser does not understand (among them.dav,.mkv,.aviand.ts) are offered for download — you can watch them in, for example, the free VLC player.
⚠️ A raw
.h264/.h265stream will not open in the default Windows player either — Windows Media Player does not recognise it and asks whether to try at all. You need the free VLC, or another player that handles raw streams. It is worth installing it before you urgently need the footage.
¶ Documents
The terms on which the service is provided, including the ingest routes and the division of responsibility, are set out in the CVR terms of service. The processing of personal data contained in the footage is governed by the data processing agreement, and your duties as the controller of a CCTV system are summarised in the controller's guide. All three documents are currently available in Polish only.