This project was originally forked from https://gitlab.com/mediaguides/media-install-script/.
The install script is compatible with any Ubuntu host, not just the Raspberry Pi. If you have an extra PC around and would prefer to use that instead, follow the official Ubuntu server install guide and skip to [running the install script](#running the install script).
If you have any critiques or suggestions, please leave a comment so that I can continue to improve this guide.
The device at the heart of this guide is the Raspberry Pi Model B, suggested to be the 4 or 8 GB version. The Pi is a low-power computing device running a fast ARM64 chip, and is able to serve multiple media streams simultaneously.
The MicroSD card can be any size above 32GB, which is the minimum recommendation for this guide. A U3/V30 speed rating is recommended for good filesystem performance.
Recommendation: Sandisk Extreme microSDXC 32GB/64GB.
The case is technically optional but is recommended to prevent dust accumulation. A fan or aluminum heat fin is recomended (ideally both) to dissipate the heat produced by the chip, especially if utilizing transcoding. Pick a power supply able to deliver at least 15 Watts.
Recommendation: iUniker Rasperry Pi Case & 17.5W Power Supply.
The MicroSD card is small and slow. For utilizing an external HDD as your main media and database storage, at least 4TB is recommended but you can never have too much disk space. I recommend buying at the top of your budget, because it is difficult to add more drives later.
Recommendation: Western Digital Elements Desktop hard drive. Available in 4/6/8/10/12/14/16/18TB options, they frequently go on sale and are fairly quiet.
- Insert your MicroSD card to your PC
- Download the official Raspberry Pi Imager and install/run it
- Click "Choose OS"
- Select "Other general-purpose OS"
- Select "Ubuntu"
- Select "Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS"
- Click "Choose Storage" and select the SD card matching the capacity of yours. If there is more than one option, be very careful and unplug any storage devices before proceeding.
- Click "Write" and wait for the drive to be formatted and written.
- Attach the heatsinks.
- Assemble the case and plug in the fan
- Insert the formatted SD card
- Attach the power and ethernet cables, and (optional) connect a keyboard and monitor.
Download an SSH client. This can be PuTTY for Window, or Terminal for Mac, or your favorite TTY if using Linux.
- Use "ubuntu" as Host Name in PuTTY, or type
ssh ubuntu@ubuntuinto Terminal if using Mac - If you are prompted for a password, your router has found the Rasperry Pi on the network and you can proceed to "Running the Install Script". The default password is
ubuntu. - If you could not connect, you must find the IP address of the Raspberry Pi on your network.
- If your router has an app or web page that allows you to see devices, look for a device labeled "Ubuntu" or has a MAC/hardware address starting with "e4:5f:01".
- Alternatively, you can attach a monitor and keyboard to the Pi. The default username is
ubuntuand the default password isubuntu. You will be asked to change the password once you log in. Once the password has changed, type the commandip addr show | grep eth0and find the IP address beginning with192.168,172., or10. - Return to your computer and provide the IP address into PuTTY or type
ssh ubuntu@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx, replacing thexwith the IP address you found.
As stated above, this project was forked from an old Gitlab project. One of the first steps in this script will ask if you'd like to format your external hard drive. When I connected the hard drive I chose to use, the formatting part of this install script wasn't completely successful. Therefore, I chose to format the drive myself and tell the script to skip that step in the process.
If you run into similar issues, I would suggest reading this guide to learn how to format a drive in linux: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-partition-and-format-storage-devices-in-linux. You can nearly copy and paste every command in that guide. However, when choosing a location to mount the drive, chose /mnt/external instead of mnt/data. After formatting and mounting the drive, run cd /mnt/external to move to the external drive's mounted location, and then create the following directories using mkdir: /downloads, /config, /media, /media/movies, and /media/tv. If you can accomplish all of that successfully, you can run the install script and skip the drive formatting step.
The first thing you are required to do when logged in is to change the password. When typing passwords in the Linux shell, no characters are displayed but your input is still recorded.
Once logged in, running the install script is just two commands:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dalyhabit/media-install-script/master/weblaunch.sh -o weblaunch.sh && sudo bash weblaunch.sh
Follow the on-screen instructions. If you get stuck, refer to the debugging section or look at the comments.
From here on out, you can leave puTTY/ssh alone, the configuration can be done from a web browser. Remember the hostname/ip address you connected to for the next section.
Jackett is only as good as the trackers you have added to it. Navigate to http://serverIP:9117 where serverIP is the IP address or hostname of the Linux server.
Add a few indexers using the "add indexer" button. It may feel like a good idea to add a lot, but that increases search times for every single search.
Congrats! You now have a multi-tracker search engine at your fingertips, or more importantly, the fingertips of Sonarr and Radarr. Keep this window open as we move to the next configuration step.
Navigate to http://serverIP:7878 in order to access the Radarr console. Next, go to Indexers. Enable "Show Advanced" at the top menu bar under search. For each of the indexers you added to Jackett, do the following
- Press the add symbol
- Select Torznab
- Go back to the Jackett window and click "copy Torznab Feed" for your index
- Paste in the URL box, but change
http://serverIP:9117tohttp://jackett:9117. The docker containers address each other by their container name, not by your server's IP. - Copy the API key from Jackett (in the top right)
If you see a warning like
This indexer does not support any of the selected categories! (You may need to turn on advanced settings to see them)
You'll need to go back into Jackett, hit the wrench for the indexer causing the issue, and search for the category of "Movies." There are sometimes several. Copy each category you wish to search (for example, don't include Movies/x265/4k if you don't intend to watch 4K movies) and paste them, separated by commas, into the "Categories" box in Radarr.
Once done, it's time to add our first movie and define the destination paths for our downloads.
Search up a movie (preferably one that's recent and has seeders) in the top bar and select the correct movie. When the popup appears, click under "Root Folder" and select "Add a new path". Fill in the text field with /storage/media/movies and press "OK". Select the quality profile desired (otherwise, it will select the most seeded) and check "Start search for missing movie".
View your transmission progress at http://serverIP:9091. The download should be added and everything should begin working. When the download finishes, the file will be "hard linked" to the /mnt/external/media/movies directory in a new organized folder. This enables you to seed your entire collection while also maintaining an organized file structure. Deleting from the /mnt/external/downloads directory will not save you any space, because the two files point to the same 1's and 0's on your hard disk. Additionally, when you want to delete a movie from your collection, make sure it is also deleted from /mnt/data/downloads. If you opted to use filebrowser, you can delete from both of these directories at http://serverIP:8080
Finally, we're going to authentication-lock Radarr by going to Settings -> General and selecting "Basic". Choose a username and password, but be aware that Radarr does not transmit the password securely. This is optional but highly recommended.
Radarr is based on Sonarr and the same steps above should be followed, but this time at http://serverIP:8989.
The only other difference is that you should use the /storage/media/tv directory as your "Root Folder" in order to keep the two libraries distinct for Plex.
If you opted for authentication on Radarr, you should do so on Sonarr with the same username and password. Otherwise, some web browsers will get confused.
The VPN tunnel is capable of downloading more than just media. You can add torrent files and magnet URIs in transmission at http://serverIP:9091, then download them in filebrowser at http://serverIP:8080.
In order to make changes to the runtime configuration, you will need to modify docker-compose.yml. Connect in the same way you did to run the install script (puTTY/ssh) and type sudo nano /app/docker-compose.yml. You will be dropped into a keyboard-only text editor. Use the arrow keys to make changes, then save with control-o, enter and exit with control-x.
Once changes are made, restart the runtime with the changes: cd /app && sudo docker compose up -d
This bug is displayed when transmission does not completely finish initializing. This could be due to a number of things, but the easiest way to check is to check the log. Press control-c to break out of the install script, then type docker logs -f transmission and look for relevant log entries. Specifically, look for authentication failed, connection timed out, or the last log entry for each startup (transmission will continue to restart even as it has errors). The official issues tracker is a good place to look for solutions.
Aside from the error above, the most likely reason you will run into errors is because of permissions problems. Because no computer is exactly the same, and I'm unsure what error you are seeing, I cannot tell you exactly how to fix it. However, the most common solution will be to make sure that the app/ directory and everything in the /mnt/external directory are read/writeable by your user, whose PUID and GUID are (most likely) 1000 and whose names are both ubuntu. Before running the following commands, you must confirm your user and group's IDs and their names. If your group ID is not 1000 or your user's name is no ubuntu, replace ubuntu with your user's name in commands below. You may also need to edit you docker-compose.yml and swap all the PUIDs and GUIDs to match yours.
Here is how you can change the ownership and permissions of a folder (in this example, I'm editing the /app directory): sudo chgrp ubuntu /app followed by sudo chmod g+rwx /app.