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Manual Installation

Portable Windows Package​

Portable Windows Install​

  1. Download and extract the latest version.

  2. Create a folder jellyfin at your preferred install location.

  3. Copy the extracted folder into the jellyfin folder and rename it to system.

  4. Create jellyfin.bat within your jellyfin folder containing:

    • To use the default library/data location at %localappdata%:
    <--Your install path-->\jellyfin\system\jellyfin.exe
    • To use a custom library/data location (Path after the -d parameter):
    <--Your install path-->\jellyfin\system\jellyfin.exe -d <--Your install path-->\jellyfin\data
    • To use a custom library/data location (Path after the -d parameter) and disable the auto-start of the webapp:
    <--Your install path-->\jellyfin\system\jellyfin.exe -d <--Your install path-->\jellyfin\data -noautorunwebapp

  5. Run

    jellyfin.bat

  6. Open your browser at http://<--Server-IP-->:8096.

Portable Windows Update​

  1. Stop Jellyfin
  2. Rename the Jellyfin system folder to system-bak
  3. Download and extract the latest Jellyfin version
  4. Copy the extracted folder into the jellyfin folder and rename it to system
  5. Run jellyfin.bat to start the server again

Portable Windows Rollback​

  1. Stop Jellyfin.
  2. Delete the system folder.
  3. Rename system-bak to system.
  4. Run jellyfin.bat to start the server again.

Portable macOS package​

Installing the Portable macOS Version​

  1. Download the latest version of Jellyfin.
  2. Extract it into the Applications folder.
  3. Open Terminal and type cd followed with a space then drag the jellyfin folder into the terminal.
  4. Type xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine . to remove the quarantine flag.
  5. Type codesign -fs - --deep jellyfin to create an ad-hoc signature for the server.
  6. Type ./jellyfin to run jellyfin.
  7. Open your browser at http://localhost:8096.

Closing the terminal window will end Jellyfin. Running Jellyfin in screen or tmux can prevent this from happening.

Updating the Portable macOS Version​

  1. Download the latest version.
  2. Stop the currently running server either via the dashboard or using CTRL+C in the terminal window.
  3. Extract the latest version into Applications
  4. Open Terminal and type cd followed with a space then drag the jellyfin folder into the terminal.
  5. Type xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine . to remove the quarantine flag.
  6. Type codesign -fs - --deep jellyfin to create an ad-hoc signature for the server.
  7. Type ./jellyfin to run jellyfin.
  8. Open your browser at http://localhost:8096

Uninstalling the Portable macOS Version​

  1. Stop the currently running server either via the dashboard or using CTRL+C in the terminal window.
  2. Move /Application/jellyfin-version folder to the Trash. Replace version with the actual version number you are trying to delete.
  3. Delete the folder ~/.config/jellyfin/
  4. Delete the folder ~/.local/share/jellyfin/

Using FFmpeg with the Portable macOS Version​

The portable version doesn't come with FFmpeg by default. There are a few options for installing FFmpeg:

Once downloaded, remove the quarantine flag for the ffmpeg and ffprobe.

Ensure that both ffmpeg and ffprobe are located at the same path, then execute the following command:

cd /path/to/ffmpeg/folder
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine .

Portable Linux install​

Generic amd64, arm64, and armhf Linux builds in TAR archive format are available in the main download repository.

Base Installation Process​

Create a directory in /opt for jellyfin and its files, and enter that directory.

sudo mkdir /opt/jellyfin
cd /opt/jellyfin

Download the latest generic Linux build for your architecture. The rest of these instructions assume version 10.8.13 is being installed (i.e. jellyfin_10.8.13_amd64.tar.gz). Download the generic build, then extract the archive:

sudo wget https://repo.jellyfin.org/?path=/server/linux/stable/combined/jellyfin_10.8.13_amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar xvzf jellyfin_10.8.13_amd64.tar.gz

Create a symbolic link to the Jellyfin 10.8.13 directory. This allows an upgrade by repeating the above steps and enabling it by simply re-creating the symbolic link to the new version.

sudo ln -s jellyfin_10.8.13 jellyfin

Create four sub-directories for Jellyfin data.

sudo mkdir data cache config log

FFmpeg Installation​

If you are not running a Debian derivative, install ffmpeg through your OS's package manager, and skip this section.

caution

Not being able to use jellyfin-ffmpeg will most likely break hardware acceleration and tonemapping.

If you are running Debian or a derivative, you should download and install an ffmpeg .deb package built specifically for Jellyfin.

If you run into any dependency errors, run this and it will install them and jellyfin-ffmpeg.

sudo apt install -f

Running Jellyfin​

Due to the number of command line options that must be passed on to the Jellyfin binary, it is easiest to create a small script to run Jellyfin.

sudoedit jellyfin.sh

Then paste the following commands and modify as needed.

#!/bin/bash
JELLYFINDIR="/opt/jellyfin"
FFMPEGDIR="/usr/share/jellyfin-ffmpeg"

$JELLYFINDIR/jellyfin/jellyfin \
 -d $JELLYFINDIR/data \
 -C $JELLYFINDIR/cache \
 -c $JELLYFINDIR/config \
 -l $JELLYFINDIR/log \
 --ffmpeg $FFMPEGDIR/ffmpeg

Assuming you desire Jellyfin to run as a non-root user, chmod all files and directories to your normal login user and group. Also make the startup script above executable.

sudo chown -R user:group *
sudo chmod u+x jellyfin.sh

Finally, you can run it. You will see lots of log information when run, this is normal. Setup is as usual in the web browser.

./jellyfin.sh

Starting Jellyfin on boot (optional)​

Create a systemd unit file.

cd /etc/systemd/system
sudo nano jellyfin.service

Then paste the following contents, replacing youruser with your username.

[Unit]
Description=Jellyfin
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=youruser
Restart=always
ExecStart=/opt/jellyfin/jellyfin.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Apply the correct permissions to the file, enable the service to start on boot, then start it.

sudo chmod 644 jellyfin.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable jellyfin.service
sudo systemctl start jellyfin.service

Portable .NET DLL​

Platform-agnostic .NET Core DLL builds in TAR archive format are available from the portable downloads section.
These builds use the binary jellyfin.dll and must be loaded with dotnet.

Debian (using extrepo)​

extrepo is only supported on Debian currently. The advantage of extrepo is that it is packaged in Debian. So you don’t have to execute the curl | sudo bash combo from the previous Automatic section. The risk with that command is that it relies on the security of the webserver. extrepo avoids this by having the Jellyfin repo information including the GPG key in its extrepo-data. extrepo-data is verified with GPG by the extrepo tool. So there is a chain of trust from Debian all the way to the Jellyfin repo information.

sudo apt install extrepo
sudo extrepo enable jellyfin

Now you can continue at step 5. of the Repository (Manual) section.

Official Linux Repository (Manual)​

If you would prefer to install everything manually, the full steps are as follows:

  1. Install curl and gnupg if you haven't already:

    sudo apt install curl gnupg

  2. On Ubuntu (and derivatives) only, enable the Universe repository to obtain all the FFmpeg dependencies:

    sudo add-apt-repository universe
    note

    If the above command fails you will need to install the following package software-properties-common. This can be achieved with the following command sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

    On Debian, you can also enable the non-free components of your base repositories for additional FFmpeg dependencies, but this is optional.

  3. Download the GPG signing key (signed by the Jellyfin Team) and install it:

    sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
    curl -fsSL https://repo.jellyfin.org/jellyfin_team.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/jellyfin.gpg

  4. Add a repository configuration at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jellyfin.sources:

    export VERSION_OS="$( awk -F'=' '/^ID=/{ print $NF }' /etc/os-release )"
    export VERSION_CODENAME="$( awk -F'=' '/^VERSION_CODENAME=/{ print $NF }' /etc/os-release )"
    export DPKG_ARCHITECTURE="$( dpkg --print-architecture )"
    cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jellyfin.sources
    Types: deb
    URIs: https://repo.jellyfin.org/${VERSION_OS}
    Suites: ${VERSION_CODENAME}
    Components: main
    Architectures: ${DPKG_ARCHITECTURE}
    Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/jellyfin.gpg
    EOF
    note

    The supported values for the above variables are:

    • ${VERSION_OS}: One of debian or ubuntu; if it is not, use the closest one for your distribution.
    • ${VERSION_CODENAME}: One of our supported Debian or Ubuntu release codenames. These can change as new releases come out and old releases are dropped, so check the script to be sure yours is supported.
    • ${DPKG_ARCHITECTURE}: One of our supported architectures. Microsoft does not provide a .NET for 32-bit x86 Linux systems, and hence Jellyfin is not supported on the i386 architecture.

  5. Update your APT repositories:

    sudo apt update

  6. Install the Jellyfin metapackage, which will automatically fetch the various sub-packages:

    sudo apt install jellyfin
    note

    If you want to be explicit, instead of the metapackage, you can install the sub-packages individually:

    sudo apt install jellyfin-server jellyfin-web

    The jellyfin-server package will automatically select the right jellyfin-ffmpeg package for you as well.

  7. Manage the Jellyfin system service:

    sudo systemctl {action} jellyfin
    sudo service jellyfin {action}

.deb Packages (Very Manual)​

Raw .deb packages, including old versions, source packages, and dpkg meta files, are available in the main download repository.

note

The repository is the preferred way to obtain Jellyfin on Debian and Ubuntu systems, as this ensures you get automatic updates and that all dependencies are properly resolved. Use these steps only if you really know what you're doing.

  1. On Ubuntu (and derivatives) only, enable the Universe repository to obtain all the FFmpeg dependencies:

    sudo add-apt-repository universe
    note

    If the above command fails you will need to install the following package software-properties-common. This can be achieved with the following command sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

    On Debian, you can also enable the non-free components of your base repositories for additional FFmpeg dependencies, but this is optional.

  2. Download the desired jellyfin-server, jellyfin-web, and jellyfin-ffmpeg .deb packages from the repository; jellyfin is a metapackage and is not required.

  3. Install the downloaded .deb packages:

    sudo dpkg -i jellyfin_*.deb jellyfin-ffmpeg_*.deb
    note

    This step may throw errors; continue to the next step to resolve them.

  4. Use apt to install any missing dependencies:

    sudo apt -f install

  5. Manage the Jellyfin system service:

    sudo systemctl {action} jellyfin
    sudo service jellyfin {action}