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Quick start

This page takes you from ordering to your first successful S3 command.

Step 1 — Order a plan

Choose a tier and a datacenter region, then order through the store or the client area. Not sure which tier? See choosing a tier.

Step 2 — Receive your credentials

Provisioning generally takes about 1 hour after your order is placed. Once your service is provisioned, you'll get an email containing:

  • your S3 access key
  • your S3 secret key
  • your node's HTTPS endpoint URL

Keep these safe

Your secret key is shown so you can configure your client — treat it like a password. See Credentials & rotation.

Step 3 — Set your whitelist IP (required)

Your endpoint is locked to a single IP address for security. Until you set your whitelist IP in the Client Area, nothing can connect.

  1. Sign in to the Client Area and open your service.
  2. Set your whitelist IP to the public IP of the machine that will access the storage.
  3. Save. Only that IP can reach your endpoint.

One IP only

Exactly one IP can access your service at a time. If your public IP changes (home ISP, VPN, new server), update the whitelist IP or connections will be refused. Not sure of your IP? Visit ifconfig.me from the machine that will connect.

Prefer to script it? You can change the whitelist IP from the command line — see Updating your whitelist IP.

Step 4 — Configure your S3 client

Point any S3 client at your endpoint URL and enter your keys. If your client asks for a region and you don't have one, use us-east-1 as a placeholder — see Endpoint & credentials.

Prefer to let an AI do it?

Jump to Set up faster with an AI assistant for a copy-paste prompt that writes your client config for you.

Step 5 — Make your first request

aws --endpoint-url "https://YOUR-ENDPOINT/" s3 ls

rclone lsd zendrive:

s3cmd ls

If you see your buckets (or an empty list with no error), you're connected. Full, copy-paste configs for each tool are on the client examples page.

Step 6 — Browse and download

ZenDRIVE S3 Access is read-only — you list and download data:

# list what's in a bucket
aws --endpoint-url "https://YOUR-ENDPOINT/" s3 ls s3://bucket-name/
# download a file
aws --endpoint-url "https://YOUR-ENDPOINT/" s3 cp s3://bucket-name/file.txt ./

Step 7 — Request missing content

Can't find a title? Request it — there are no request limits, and you get full status reporting while it's fetched and added to your library. Requests go through a Sonarr/Radarr-compatible API at https://arrproxy.clearstreamer.com, authenticated with your S3 secret key:

# look up a movie, then it can be queued and fetched automatically
curl -H "api-key: YOUR_S3_SECRET_KEY" \
  "https://arrproxy.clearstreamer.com/radarr/api/v3/movie/lookup?term=Inception"

Full lookup, add, and status examples — for both *arr-compatible apps and raw curl — are on the Requesting missing content page.

Step 8 — Stay in sync with live updates (optional)

If you mount the storage for streaming, ZenLocalPoller keeps it current automatically: it subscribes to the ZenDRIVE MQTT stream and refreshes your rclone cache (and optionally triggers Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr) the moment media is added or removed — so new content appears without re-listing.

Set up faster with an AI assistant

Rather configure things by chat? Paste the prompt below into an AI assistant (Claude, Codex, ChatGPT, …), fill in the bracketed details first, and it will produce the exact config for your tool.

I'm setting up ZenDRIVE S3 Access — a read-only S3 endpoint for streaming a media
library. Help me configure my client and connect. Reference these pages:
https://wiki.clearstreamer.com/getting-started/quick-start/
https://wiki.clearstreamer.com/connecting/clients/

My details:
- S3 endpoint URL: [from your welcome email, e.g. https://your-node.example/]
- Access key: [paste]
- Secret key: [paste — treat this like a password]
- Tool I want to use: [aws CLI / rclone / s3cmd / other]
- (rclone only) also set up a mount for streaming? [yes/no]

Produce the exact config for my chosen tool, then the first command to list my buckets.

Rules you must follow:
- The service is READ-ONLY: only list and download (GET) operations. Never suggest
  upload, delete, or bucket-creation commands.
- If a region is required and I don't have one, use `us-east-1` as a placeholder.
- Never hardcode my secret key into a shared or committed file, and never log it.
- Remind me the endpoint only works from the single whitelist IP I set in the
  Client Area — connections from any other IP are refused.
- Don't invent credentials — leave placeholders for anything I didn't provide.

Auto-syncing a mount?

To keep an rclone mount in sync as content changes, the ZenLocalPoller configuration reference has its own AI prompt for generating a config.yml.

What if it doesn't connect?

Work through connection errors — the most common causes are a mistyped endpoint, a wrong key, or a missing https://.