How to selectively allow access

Choose between room caps, approval prompts, queue mode, transfer rooms, SSO, app.invite.cam, passwords, and source connection limits.

VDO.Ninja has several access-control tools. They are not interchangeable, so start by choosing the layer you want to control:

Goal	Best option	Where it applies
Limit how many people can be admitted to a room	&roomcap	Claimed director rooms
Make the director approve or deny room joins	&requireapproval	Claimed director rooms
Show a modal popup for each pending room join	&approvepopup	Director UI, used with &requireapproval
Let trusted users bypass approval or a lower room cap	&roomkey	Director and selected guest links
Ask a publisher before a viewer can see a single source	&prompt	Push/source links
Hold guests until the director activates them	&queue, &screen, &hold, &holdwithvideo	Guest invite workflow
Move approved guests from a lobby to a private room	Transfer rooms, &rooms, &queuetransfer	Director workflow
Check identity before users reach the VDO.Ninja room flow	SSO and signed-in access	External/auth gateway path
Run a larger lobby with owner-controlled access	app.invite.cam	Lobby/invite app
Limit connections to a single source	&maxconnections	Push/source links

Limit room size

Use &roomcap on the director link:

https://vdo.ninja/?director=MyRoom&roomcap=10

On the official vdo.ninja service, the default cap is 80 and the hard maximum is 80. A lower cap can be set per claimed room. Higher values are clamped.

Room caps are handshake-server admission controls attached to the live director claim. If the director is not present, that director's live cap is not present either.

Approve guests before they enter

Use &requireapproval on the director link:

https://vdo.ninja/?director=MyRoom&requireapproval

Guests attempting to join are put into a pending state until the director approves or denies them.

To also show a modal confirmation popup to the director, add &approvepopup:

https://vdo.ninja/?director=MyRoom&requireapproval&approvepopup

The guest invite can stay normal:

https://vdo.ninja/?room=MyRoom

&approvepopup does not enable audio alerts or system notifications. Add &notify or &beep for sound.

Allow trusted bypasses

Use &roomkey when selected guests should bypass approval or a custom room cap:

https://vdo.ninja/?director=MyRoom&requireapproval&roomcap=10&roomkey=TRUSTEDKEY

Trusted guest:

https://vdo.ninja/?room=MyRoom&roomkey=TRUSTEDKEY

The room key cannot bypass the server hard cap. Treat it like a password and rotate it if it leaks.

Confirm viewers for a single source

&prompt, also available as &approve or &validate, is sender-side confirmation. It asks the publisher before sending audio/video to a newly connected viewer:

https://vdo.ninja/?push=Camera1&prompt

Use this for one-source push/view workflows. It is not a room admission system, and it does not stop a denied viewer from trying again.

Queue, hold, and screening workflows

Use &queue and the queue variants when you want a room workflow where guests wait until the director activates them.

Common modes:

• &queue on both director and guest links creates a screening-room workflow.

• &queue only on the guest invite creates a simple "Activate Guest" workflow.

• &screen / &queue2 lets the guest see and hear the director before activation.

• &hold / &queue3 keeps the guest on a waiting message until activation.

• &holdwithvideo / &queue4 lets the director preview the guest while the guest waits.

Queue mode is a guest workflow. &requireapproval and &roomcap are handshake-server room admission controls. They can be combined, but they solve different problems.

Transfer rooms

Use transfer rooms when you want a public lobby room and one or more private destination rooms.

A common setup:

1. Guests join a public lobby room.

2. The director screens them there.

3. The director transfers approved guests into a private room.

Use &rooms to add preset transfer buttons to the director UI. Use &queuetransfer / &qt when transferred guests should remain queued in the destination room.

If the destination room has &requireapproval, transferred guests enter that destination room pending approval. If the destination room has &roomcap and is full, the transfer is rejected.

SSO and larger lobbies

SSO and signed-in access is its own access path. Use it when identity needs to be checked before a person reaches the VDO.Ninja room flow.

app.invite.cam is a larger lobby/invite path with authenticated room ownership, waiting lists, and owner-controlled grant/revoke access.

Do not treat SSO or app.invite.cam as the same thing as &requireapproval, &roomcap, &approvepopup, or &prompt. They sit in front of or alongside the VDO.Ninja room workflow.

Other access tools

&password can protect a room or source link. Change the password when rotating between groups.

&maxconnections limits the total push/view peer connections for a source. It can be useful for one-source workflows, but it is not a room-cap replacement.

Cloudflare Zero Trust or another identity gateway can protect a self-hosted VDO.Ninja deployment before users reach the VDO.Ninja page.

Related

&requireapproval&roomcap&roomkey&approvepopup&prompt&queue