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Part 10 – Jellyfin

Use at your own risk. All guides and scripts are provided for educational purposes only. Always review and understand any code before running it — especially with administrative privileges. Test in a safe environment before using in production. Your system, your responsibility.

Jellyfin is a free, open-source media server — your own Netflix running on your own hardware. It streams films, TV series, music, and photos to any device, with optional hardware transcoding using the RTX 4080 Super.

Jellyfin clients are available for:

  • Web browser
  • iOS and iPad
  • Android
  • Apple TV and Android TV
  • Roku, Fire TV
  • Kodi plugin

Prerequisites

  • ✅ Docker and the wcp-network network in place
  • ✅ Caddy configured with jellyfin.wcp
  • ✅ /mnt/media/ mounted and populated with your media

→ Follow Part 2 and Part 3 first.

Step 1 – Organise your media

Jellyfin works best with a consistent folder structure:

/mnt/media/
├── films/
│   ├── The Matrix (1999)/
│   │   └── The Matrix (1999).mkv
│   └── Inception (2010)/
│       └── Inception (2010).mkv
├── series/
│   ├── Breaking Bad/
│   │   ├── Season 1/
│   │   │   ├── S01E01.mkv
│   │   │   └── S01E02.mkv
│   │   └── Season 2/
└── music/
    └── Artist Name/
        └── Album Name/
            └── 01 - Track Name.flac

Name films as Title (Year) for best metadata matching.

Step 2 – Create the Jellyfin folder 

mkdir -p /opt/docker/jellyfin/config
mkdir -p /opt/docker/jellyfin/cache
cd /opt/docker/jellyfin

Step 3 – Create the compose.yml 

nano compose.yml
services:
  jellyfin:
    image: jellyfin/jellyfin:latest
    container_name: jellyfin
    runtime: nvidia
    environment:
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
      - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all
      - TZ=Europe/Stockholm
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./cache:/cache
      - /mnt/media:/media:ro
    networks:
      - wcp-network
    restart: unless-stopped

networks:
  wcp-network:
    external: true

Key settings:

  • runtime: nvidia — enables GPU hardware transcoding
  • /mnt/media:/media:ro — mounts the media library read-only inside the container

Step 4 – Start Jellyfin 

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f

Wait until Jellyfin is ready. Press CTRL+C to exit logs.

Step 5 – Initial setup

Open your browser:

http://jellyfin.wcp

The setup wizard will guide you through:

  1. Create admin account — set username and password
  2. Add media libraries:
    • Click Add Media Library
    • Type: Movies → Path: /media/films
    • Type: TV Shows → Path: /media/series
    • Type: Music → Path: /media/music
  3. Choose metadata language — English recommended for best matching
  4. Complete setup and wait for the library scan

Step 6 – Enable hardware transcoding

Hardware transcoding lets Jellyfin use the RTX 4080 Super to transcode video in real time — essential for streaming to devices that don’t support your source format.

In Jellyfin:

  1. Go to Admin → Dashboard → Playback
  2. Set Hardware acceleration to NVENC
  3. Enable the codec options that appear (H.264, H.265, AV1 if available)
  4. Click Save

Test by playing a video and checking the playback info — it should show hardware transcoding active.

Step 7 – Install Jellyfin on your devices

iOS / Apple TV: Search for Jellyfin in the App Store.

Android / Android TV: Available on Google Play and F-Droid.

Web browser: Any browser works — go to http://jellyfin.wcp.

In the app, add your server:

  • Server address: http://jellyfin.wcp (via Tailscale)
  • Log in with your admin credentials

Step 8 – Remote access via Tailscale

With Tailscale connected on your device, Jellyfin is accessible from anywhere:

http://jellyfin.wcp

Or directly via Tailscale IP:

http://100.x.x.x:8096

No port forwarding required. Transcoding handles different network speeds automatically.

Keeping Jellyfin updated 

cd /opt/docker/jellyfin
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Useful commands 

# Restart Jellyfin
docker compose restart

# Follow logs
docker compose logs -f

# Trigger library rescan from CLI
docker exec jellyfin jellyfin --rescan

What’s next

Part 11 deploys Vaultwarden — a self-hosted password manager compatible with all Bitwarden clients.

Up next: Part 11 – Vaultwarden (coming soon)

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