Any tips for running Jellyfin?

[ekingston]

My home FreeBSD server mostly runs as a media server. Every so often I feel the desire to see what other options are out there. Now it's Jellyfin's turn. Any tips, tricks, or gotchas I might want to know about?

The one tip I learned the hard way (so far) is that Jellyfin uses the same ports as Emby. So if you want them to co-exists, you have to change the ports on one of them.

 

[SirDice]

You could run it in a jail on its own IP address, then you won't have a conflict.

 

[nxjoseph]

You could run it in a jail on its own IP address, then you won't have a conflict.

If you are going to run it in a jail then that thread may help.
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/jellyfin-in-freebsd-jail.88918/

 

[Espionage724]

Is there any benefits to using Jellyfin vs a NAS and Kodi?

 

[ekingston]

Is there any benefits to using Jellyfin vs a NAS and Kodi?

Maybe. Jellyfin is a media server (like Plex and Emby). So you can use a client on a smart tv, appletv, firetv, tablet, smart phone, etc. to watch. It can stream to more than one tv/device at a time. And you can connect to it when not at home.

Having said that, my current test is extremely disappointing. Jellyfin isn't picking up most of my library. It's finding about 5% of my movies and 20% of my tv shows compared to Emby.

 

[tetsuo]

I run jellyfin in a jail with its own IP address which also has qbittorrent and navidrome. There does not seem to be any "special consideration" to run jellyfin

 

[xibo]

I've put my jellyfin instance into a localhost-only jail, and use nginx to provide access from non-localhost sources via https exclusively as I don't like the idea of sending unencrypted data through the network.

Having said that, my current test is extremely disappointing. Jellyfin isn't picking up most of my library. It's finding about 5% of my movies and 20% of my tv shows compared to Emby.

You need your library to be structured in a specific way in order for Jellyfin to be able to detect it. See https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies and https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/shows

 

[victort]

There is one gotcha if you run it in a jail, and that is to make sure you set “allow.mlock”.

See https://github.com/tschettervictor/bsd-apps/tree/main/jellyfin for an easy install script.

Although it is quite easy to just install via pkg anyway.

 

[Espionage724]

Maybe. Jellyfin is a media server (like Plex and Emby). So you can use a client on a smart tv, appletv, firetv, tablet, smart phone, etc. to watch. It can stream to more than one tv/device at a time. And you can connect to it when not at home.

Kodi has clients on TVs, Android/iOS, and most desktop OS (even FreeBSD)

• A benefit is that the device itself handles the video decoding
• Connection limits are as many as the file server allows in-general (Windows does 20 by default; can set anything FTP/NFS/etc)
• Kodi can connect to external URLs and servers; you can use anything to connect to your fileserver (VPN, open FTP ports over WAN; pretty sure I saw scp/ssh too!)
• Kodi also has media scraping for movie/TV details, banners, etc to make media look nice!

I like the idea of having a general file server, media clients grabbing video files from the server as-is, and the media player handling the decode/acceleration details. It's also 100% free no accounts involved

Kodi + NAS might be easier too: anything with jails would apply to general file servers/hosting and likely be easier to protect or restrict (Jellyfin mentions 3 ports TCP/UDP, Plex has 9; FTP is 1)

 

[ekingston]

Kodi has clients on TVs, Android/iOS, and most desktop OS (even FreeBSD)

• A benefit is that the device itself handles the video decoding
• Connection limits are as many as the file server allows in-general (Windows does 20 by default; can set anything FTP/NFS/etc)
• Kodi can connect to external URLs and servers; you can use anything to connect to your fileserver (VPN, open FTP ports over WAN; pretty sure I saw scp/ssh too!)
• Kodi also has media scraping for movie/TV details, banners, etc to make media look nice!

I like the idea of having a general file server, media clients grabbing video files from the server as-is, and the media player handling the decode/acceleration details. It's also 100% free no accounts involved

Kodi + NAS might be easier too: anything with jails would apply to general file servers/hosting and likely be easier to protect or restrict (Jellyfin mentions 3 ports TCP/UDP, Plex has 9; FTP is 1)

Many years ago, when I started converting my DVD & Bluray collection to files, I looked at the available options. Kodi was one. At the time I rejected it because I needed something that had a client for the Roku device. I ended up with Plex and switched to Emby a few years later.

You got me to look at Kodi again. Same problem as before. There's no native Kodi app in the app store. I'm now using a combination of AppleTV and FireTV stick devices. I did find instructions for side-loading Kodi but that's too much of a pain.

I do think Kodi is one of the best options for media management but it lacks streaming capabilities. I also prefer to have the transcoding done (when needed) on the server. My media server might not be all that powerful but it's got more oomph than my AppleTV 4K and a lot more than my FireTV sticks.

 

[daeron]

Many years ago, when I started converting my DVD & Bluray collection to files, I looked at the available options. Kodi was one. At the time I rejected it because I needed something that had a client for the Roku device. I ended up with Plex and switched to Emby a few years later.

You got me to look at Kodi again. Same problem as before. There's no native Kodi app in the app store. I'm now using a combination of AppleTV and FireTV stick devices. I did find instructions for side-loading Kodi but that's too much of a pain.

Having said that, my current test is extremely disappointing. Jellyfin isn't picking up most of my library. It's finding about 5% of my movies and 20% of my tv shows compared to Emby.

Kodi allegedly now has a Roku add-on.
I had the same issue with Kodi unable to scan my logically named files into a Library. I've used my own naming convention for decades, and I'm not changing it.
I finally made peace with Kodi by using their minium nfo option (replace each filename dot-suffix with "nfo", its a simple xml with only title-name & a single unique-id); then Kodi will not care what the filename is, it'll identify the content by whichever unique-id (IMDB or TVDB etc.) you set so long as the nfo title matches the title at IMDB etc. After your files are registered in your library, you can delete the nfo files or leave them if you're as untrusting as I am.

 

[ekingston]

Update (sorry about the necro) but recent updates have made Jellyfin much more reliable. I'm not sure if it was the Jellyfin devs, my recent update to the latest FreeBSD, or updates to dependencies. But as of this past weekend it's working reliably.

One thing I did have to do was to add this to my /etc/rc.conf:

jellyfin_env="DOTNET_SYSTEM_NET_DISABLEIPV6=1"

This tells the underlying dotnet runtime to not use any ipv6. My ISP doesn't support ipv6 but I didn't remove it from the FreeBSD kernel (although it's not running on the server).