after almost 15yrs my plex server is no more. jellyfin behind nginx with authentik is running very nicely.
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Could you point me to a good tutorial for hosting Minecraft server for my kids?
Right? Jellyfin is awesome
Wouldn’t containers make more sense for some of these rather than full blown VMs?
What is virsh?
It is the command line interface for libvirt/qemu/kvm on Linux. I usually just use virt-manager remotely via SSH to create and manage my VMs, but virsh can be handy as well.
command-line virtual machine manager
Plex still good for the boys that bought the lifetime pass. I understand why people would change. But it’s still the best plug and play option. Waiting until they break the “lifetime” thing and fuck us over.
Didn’t that already happen? Or am I misremembering?
Mostly not yet. They did restrict the bandwidth on relay, but anyone with half a brain can open a port and that still allows apps to direct connect without relay. Honestly I wish could just force it to never relay since randomly my iPad will use relay even when I’m on the same network but that’s more because the new iOS app since the rewrite is dogshit.
Lifetime pass since 2012 here.
Hmm I don’t like dogshit. Nobody ever seems to clean it up.
I am still using Kodi. It is feeling a bit long in the tooth in current year, but I can’t complain. I tried Plex because chromecasting is a feature I would love. Sadly it didn’t support the ISOs of my 1:1 rips. Maybe it does now (I stopped waiting for them years ago). As for Jellyfin, they seem to have an anti-ISO stance. One of the devs seemingly (or someone claiming to be a contributor) said I should convert all my media to a more modern format and make my own menus because it would be fun. Oh well, Kodi it is.
i’ve never heard of anyone that keeps dvd menus around. like, i get it for archival purposes but i would never want to actually navigate a menu when i want to watch something. in my mind it’s like sitting through the commercials on a rented vhs. i would probably store a converted copy as well, in a format that would let me specify from the application what track and subtitle i want so i can set a default.
i love old dvd menus :(
maybe it’s because i grew up with vhs first but dvd always felt like a lot of hassle compared to just “put it in and watch”
Blu-ray menus do kind of suck, but they are still mostly good enough to make all the supplemental material accessible (assuming the studio bothered to provide any anymore). But DVD menus (at least during that earlier golden age) add a layer to the experience I never knew I had been missing.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show has some dancing fishnet legs and sexyhorror lips dancing around. You get to see so many extras and choose two versions of the movie and AND a secret Easter egg third version. A smorgasbord. Same for Terminator 2: two good versions of the movie and that lame Star Trek-ish ending one was hidden and I love having the option to not watch it. Plus many more. Fight Club is the only one I can think of to make use of that camera angle swapping button. The DVD versions of Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace wouldn’t work any other way.
Perfect way to kill time when others go for a last minute toilet visit or decide to make popcorn. I am not going to the trouble of transcoding my entire library to get less.
i ripped all my dvds specifically to get rid of the menus because they were slow, hard to use, and full of frustrating animations. they usually just felt like an afterthought.
i’ve never been one to be swayed by extras, it usually just feels akin to jingling keys to get me to buy shit. maybe i’m weird.
Streaming services don’t include any extras. Torrents (so I am told but I would never do that, myself, haha) are just the movie and maybe subtitles but nothing else. I doubt you are in the minority. Anyway, we are both afforded options to enjoy however we like. (Just wish I had chromecast support, but I will live). Cheers.
oh absolutely, it’s fascinating to hear a perspective i didn’t know existed.
Congrats. I’m super particular about covers and naming and the conversion of file names that Plex needed to jellyfin is intensive.
I finally got got JF up and running but still working on adding edition names to each item that is special. I really wish there was an editions field so it wasn’t a manual title update. At least I can lock the field afterwards.
You could use Radarr and Sonarr to rename all your content if you want to. You can setup your own naming scheme and it will change it for you. As far as I know Radarr and Sonarr work with Jellyfin/Plex/Emby/Kodi etc
I just wanna get rid of Plex so bad but jellyfin isn’t going to work for my grandma…
You can run them concurrently and let grandma continue to use plex.
The people asking why confuse me…y’all acting like jellyfin is easy to use on an off-site tv when it’s literally not for non tech savvy people. I don’t understand why jellyfin just doesn’t nut up and make an samsung tv client or something?
My 67 year old Mother has been using Jellyfin for years via Chromecast. Change the TV input to Chromecast and pull up the Jellyfin app. And that’s it. She never leaves Jellyfin and the Chromecast is never shut off, even if the TV is.
It’s amazing to me that you fanboys pretend like Plex is easy to use but Jellyfin is somehow not. It’s generally the exact same interface.
I don’t understand why jellyfin just doesn’t nut up and make an samsung tv client or something?
Because application development is expensive, and they’re open source–not funded by corporate interest like Plex. What exactly about that is difficult to understand?
Lol bad day huh
If your grandma can handle torrenting over VPN, then she can probably handle Jellyfin.
if my parents can navigate it your grandma can :)
I’ve heard people had luck with Tailscale playing nicely with non Plex options. I can’t say I’ve tried it. Though I do use Tailscale. Essentially if you setup Tailscale for Grandma it’ll be like she’s sitting on your local network. Even better, set it up on her router and you can literally debug all her Internet problems if you can ping it.
Beyond that a raspberry pi with a battery backup on a 4G subscription connected to the router. That would be the ultimate “grandma” setup. Connect her router/modem power to remote power cycle. But I digress.
The irony of not wanting to use Plex and saying to use Tailscale to let you use jellyfin is just too good.
Host both. Keep plex up for your gma, Jellyfin for everyone else. Tbh Jellyfin is also pretty intuitive. Currently I’m hosting both, but my gma doesn’t use it, so I’ll probably move completely to Jellyfin.
I understand. I have converted fully to JF which required people to get onn players, and tunnel into my network and it was a lot of work on my end too.
Do what works for you and them.
Why? It’s been much easier for me
Grandma? Pls send money.
I just got Authentik / Traefik going for Navidrome, Jellyfin is next.
Does it play well for the mobile applications? If you use them?
the ldap auth works great for the apps. apps dont play well with an oidc login process. i ended up using both, oidc for web and ldap fall back for applications. made it easier for my non tech inclined users. most of the current apps also support quick connect, like the plex link process. you auth on a web browser and enter a code into the app. so it’s possible to use only oidc for log in and, i believe it should be possible use css to even hide the user name and password fields.
Does jellyfin do untranscoded video/audio?
Haven’t used it in years but finally building up my media server again and I remember it had some funky settings for hardware encoding back then which I didn’t need because I was connecting to it via a repurposed gaming laptop that could easily handle 4k content and surround sound by itself.
I use jellyfin for unencoded audio and video on my clients that support it like my newer television, but I also use transcoded audio video on things that can’t handle the higher codecs like the raspberry pi.
I want to leave too, but I really like PlexAmp for my music streaming. And no, Finamp doesn’t work nearly as well or look as nice.
Finamp is good for android and has a flatpak
PlexAmp is so good. Nothing else comes close.
What about subsonic or funkwhale? I think I also tried a third one I’m forgetting
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll try them out. One thing that I hate is critical for me is integration with Android auto. It’s the last Google service I can’t seem to quit. Might have to give up and just roll with Bluetooth instead.
Navidrome and Symphonium. I use Android Auto every day with no issues.
symfonium has been mentioned in this post before specifically for android auto. i had the same hang up with apple car play. i didn’t use most of the plexamp fancy features. i just wanted it to play music and be easy to use when driving. manet finally came along for ios. though i’m still hoping one of the open source apps adds the functionality later.
This is probably the wrong post to ask this question, so sorry in advance.
I have a dual boot Linux + Windows. Jellyfin runs wonderfully on muy Linux partition with docker-compose. Anybody knows how can I clone it in my Windows partition, such that configs, metada and accounts remain the same? I’ve failed to do this, and only the media volume remaines identical on both OS.
Looks like there is a config and cache location in their docker scripts. The easiest way to make a docker application portable is to bind mount the config and cache. That way you have access to the actual files and could copy them to your windows partition.
If you’re already using a volume for that data, I think it becomes a bit trickier. I know technically you can move or copy volumes, but I’ve never tried. Although you could still bind mount a random directory and still copy the files out.
This may not be the answer you are looking for, but one method would be to use WSL on windows to run a Linux distro with Docker installed and just migrate everything over, basically 1-to-1. Then set WSL to auto start when you boot up windows. If you install Docker Desktop on Windows, it will also pick up that you’re using Docket via WSL and allow you to manage shit from the client. I don’t do that though, I’m
a masochistold-school.
Unrelated but why a full VM for Linux stuff, lxc is much more efficient
I can backup an entire VM snapshot very quickly and then restore it in a matter of minutes. Everything from the system files, database, Jellyfin version and configs, etc. All easily backed up and restored in an easy to manage bundle.
A container is not as easy to manage in the same way.
How often do you do this?
Backups? I have an automatic job running every night.
Nice. You you restore often?
How not?
If a lxc container is in a btrfs subvolume or in a zfs dataset (those are created easily like a directory, it’s not a partition), you can do a full 1:1 copy in less than one second via a snapshot, keeping all the system files, database, version and configs
Sure, ZFS snapshots are dead simple and fast. But you’d need to ensure that each container and its volumes are created in each respective dataset.
And none of this is implying that it’s hard. The top comment was criticizing OP for using VMs instead of containers. Neither one is better than the other for all use cases.
I have a ton of VMs for various use cases, and some of those VMs are container/Docker hosts. Each tool where it works best.
VMs can also be live migrated to another server in the cluster with no downtime and backups don’t need to take the VM down to do their thing. If in the future you want to move to physical hardware, you can use something like Clonezilla to back it up (not needed often, but still, something to consider).
Both have their places, but those factors are the main ones that come into play of when I want to use a VM or LXC.
you can use commit, save/load, import/export for the same thing as VM snapshots
It’s not the same. You then need to manage volumes separately from images, or if you’re mounting a host folder for the Jellyfin files then you have to manage those separately via the host.
Container images are supposed to be stateless. So then if you’re only banking up the volumes, then you need to somehow track which Jellyfin version it’s tied to, in case you run into any issues.
A VM is literally all of that but in a much more complete package.
i’d consider that all a good thing, but i can also see how it’s more work
they’re supposed to be stateless because it’s easier to manage, upgrade, etc… if you don’t want that, you can just use load/save/commit (or import/export: can’t remember off the top of my head which is which) and ignore volumes: it amounts to the same thing… there’s also buildpack rebase so you can swap out the base container and keep your top level changes for quick version upgrades that are super simple to roll back
Stronger compartmentalization
honestly every explanation probably just ends at ‘this is what i learned on and it works’. same way i religiously use nano and try to do everything in bash first. or how a couple coworkers can’t stop explaining their vim workflow and defending python unprompted like it’s a trauma response for them. my current homelab is also running a r9 with 64gb ram and 30tb storage. if i were paying for remote hosting, still using salvaged hardware or being paid, i’d invest time learning newer processes. but containers haven’t caught my interested and this set up takes basically no effort on my part to maintain, so i can focus my limited free time elsewhere.
honestly every explanation probably just ends at ‘this is what i learned on and it works’.
Yeah, lots of these answers basically boil down to “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
These days the hammer is usually docker/podman/lxc containers instead of VMs though. Like, you don’t need a container to run a self-contained statically-compiled binary, yet people still do it for some reason.
Same.
The time it takes me to write a single function in Python is the same as writing a whole Bash-script using nano.
Also I initially set up my homelab using Docker in a VM on Proxmox. Totally useless abstraction, but I never found the time and patience to migrate the VM to bare metal.Not really useless, it’s an extra layer of management (a good thing). The Proxmox system can be nearly static while giving you external level management of the OS that manages the containers.
I have a 3 server Proxmox cluster running various VMs doing different things. Some of those VMs are my container systems.
Besides, you can run containers directly on Proxmox itself.
I’ve been using jellyfin for years.
My best recommendation is DELAY UPDATES and back up before you update.
I have a history of updates breaking everything so you should be careful about them.
All software recommends backing up before an update, but for really the shit is real, you really want to back up.
I have Jellyfin running for years too and it has never broken for me, I use Linuxserver image, so maybe they delay the updates a bit?.. Now, Immich has broken so many times that nowadays is the only docker I don’t keep at latest (and I know using latest is a bad practice, I understand the reasons, but the convenience of not worrying about the versions beats all that for me)
Like the version or the media?
the config and databases or the media, you mean?
if so, the former, but I mount the meadia with a read only docker volume just to be sure, because chances are I would never notice it
I have it on docker with two volumes, ./config and ./cache
I back up those before each update.
A bad Jellyfin update should not mess with your media folder in anyway. Though you should have backups of those aswell as a rule of thumb.
With respect to the media, you can mount the volume as read only, preventing Jellyfin from accidentally wiping your underlying content.
laughs in immich
Updating immich brings excitement into my life :)
I’ve had mine on latest for about a year and I haven’t noticed any issues… I have a cron job that pulls it every night too
It’s funny, I’ve heard this so many times. And read through the docs. But I’m a mad lad who has auto updates (I know!) and have never had an issue with Immich.
I’ve been using jelly since just after the emby fork and never had an update issue on docker. Automatic snapshots every 5 mins (amount other backup tools) and means I don’t need to everything much if it does.
Jellyfin still so buggy though. The UI is garbage too. I want to love it… I run both lol.
I’ve heard jellyfin has a lot of security issues, which I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. But the BIGGEST issue is lack of a proper tvOS app. I really don’t feel like using Infuse or some other app just to use my library. Year after year I hear about people switching and yet, the gap is simply still there.
Yeah, Samsung TVs don’t have a native Jellyfin app either. You can sideload it, but good luck walking your “you touched my computer six months ago and now it’s broken. This is your fault” grandmother through that over the phone.
I just validated that the latest version of the LDAP privilege escalation issue is not an issue anymore. The
curlscript is in the ticket.This was the one where a standard user could get plugin credentials, such as the LDAP bind user, and change the LDAP endpoint. I.E., bad.
I chose this one because after going through all of them, it was the only one that allowed access to something that wasn’t just data in Jellyfin.
So for me, security is less of an issue knowing that, as only family use the service, and the remaining issues all require a logged in user (hit admin endpoint with user token).
Plus, I tried a few of those and they were also fixed, just not documented yet. I didn’t add to those tickets because I was not as formal with my testing.
To be fair there is a tvOS app in development but progress is slow because the whole project is maintained by a small handful of volunteers. They’ve put out a call for help and the maintainers post updates here
I’ve heard jellyfin has a lot of security issues
The biggest known stuff I saw on their GitHub is that a number of the exposed service URLs under the hood don’t require auth. So, it’s open-source with known requirements, you can tell easily from the outside that it’s running, and you can cause it to activate a LOT of packages without logging in. That’s a zero-day in any package that can be passed a payload away from disaster.
AS far as TVOS, I’m kinda surprised swiftfin doesn’t service you.
Yeah… that’s a non-starter for me. Not gonna risk my entire home lab when Plex doesn’t have any of that risk.
Also, running in Docker is fantastic but I’ve found Docker to be unstable at times depending on the version.
Oh, Plex has the risk. A vulnerability in Plex is how LastPass lost all their source code. A vulnerability in Tautulli which he had ported outside surfaced his auth token, then he was able to use the auth token to get into Plex and they were able to hit an rce vulnerability and pull the entire git repo the guy had locally.
The key difference is Plex at least has a security team and their name on the line with their investors.
That’s completely different. Every internet connected service has risks, but having known vulnerabilities that you just refuse to fix is different to someone figuring out a complex exploit.
swiftfin is mostly there but doesn’t support media segments, which is a deal breaker for me
really unfortunate since jellyfin media segments is a much better implementation of the concept than plex
i’m watching the swiftfin issue for when it gets added and i’ll be all over compiling and testing it
Assuming this is all true, sure its not great but how much does it matter?
Most have jellyfin in a docker. My jellyfin can’t only has read only accses to the media folder. Only the config folder has write access. Assuming the worst case scenario here, how much damage can than do?
A lot of neophyte self hosters Will try running the binary in Windows instead. Experienced self hosters will indeed use docker.
Then out of the ones that are using docker some of them will set it up as privileged.
And then how many of those people actually make read-only versus how many just add the path and don’t think about it.
Don’t confuse your good practices with what the average person will do.
https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin is available for tvOS. works great for me with one bug. since i have homepods connected to one of my apple tv’s as it’s speakers. i had to change the setting to use the native video player instead of vlc to avoid and audio delay bug. that cost me the auto play next episode function. i though not auto playing the next episode would annoy me, but it’s turned out to not be a issue at all. but infuse doesn’t include that bug if you want both homepod tv speakers and auto play next episode with jellyfin. as for security, since jellyfin is more modifiable it has a lot more room for misconfiguration for sure. plex had plenty of it’s own security issues, we just only heard about them when some security blogger discovered it.
misconfiguration here i think is a dangerous way to phrase it… it implies that there is a secure way to run jellyfin on its own. jellyfin, by itself, should never be exposed to the www. it is, no matter the configuration, insecure. to run jellyfin on the www you must put a VPN or other reverse proxy with auth over the top of it
Op already said they were behind authentik
There also absolutely are apps for tv oses like Android, I use one daily.
I think they meant Apple’s “tvOS” - which powers the Apple TV set top box.
There’s no client for it, if I had to take a guess it’s likely due to the costs of doing so.
Oh lol, of course apple just calls it TV OS
https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin i’ve got 5 apple tv users, two android tv and one webostv
Oh interesting, it’s been a while since I have tried to use Apple TV (roughly 7 years or so - I don’t use any Apple devices anymore), this wasn’t available at the time so I’m glad to see there’s finally some native support.
there’s been a LOT of progress on jellyfin, especially the past year or so. i’ve been using plex since it forked from xbmc, it ran on the bottom half of a laptop connected to a mostly working projector, both rescued from a dumpster. it’s been a fantastic platform for a long time. but i’ve also wanted off plex since they rolled out the plex account req. jellyfin is finally there for me at least.
I am also not up to date on Jellyfin security issues but the biggest one I care about is that its clients don’t support OIDC. There’s a neat plugin for OIDC, but without client support it only works with the web client and I’m not a fan of leaving login pages open to the internet.
if you use the oidc connection and apps that support quick connect you can do it. you basically end up doing things like the plex link process that got implemented when they forced everyone into their authentication service. i almost went that route but opted to leave the password auth from ldap in. its the kind of log in process most people are used too and i’ve got a few elderly users. i disabled password reset in authentik though and everyone gets a 3 word 24 char minimum password.
