Jellyfin Latest RC (Preview) Docker Image

This repository contains a Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml to automatically build and run the latest Release Candidate (Preview) version of Jellyfin Server, Jellyfin Web, and Jellyfin FFmpeg for Ubuntu Noble (24.04).

Instead of pinning specific .deb package versions, the build process dynamically queries the official Jellyfin APT repository and GitHub Releases API to retrieve and install the newest available RC packages on every build. T Some settings are specific to Intel ARC support.

🛠️ Features

• Always Up-to-Date RC: Fetches the latest candidate binaries from repo.jellyfin.org and jellyfin-ffmpeg GitHub releases automatically.
• Hardware Acceleration Ready: Configured for NVIDIA and VA-API GPU Passthrough.
• LinuxServer.io Base: Uses ghcr.io/linuxserver/baseimage-ubuntu:noble for reliable init scripts, user mapping (PUID/PGID), and clean process handling.

---

🚀 Quick Start with Docker Compose

1. File Structure

Ensure your directory contains the following files:

.
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
└── README.md

2. docker-compose.yml

services:
  jellyfin-rc:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      args:
        BUILD_DATE: "${BUILD_DATE:-}"
        VERSION: "latest-rc"
    container_name: jellyfin-rc
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all # Optional: for NVIDIA GPU
      - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,video,utility
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - /path/to/media/tvshows:/data/tvshows
      - /path/to/media/movies:/data/movies
    # Optional: Intel / AMD VA-API Hardware Transcoding
    # devices:
    #   - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
    restart: unless-stopped

3. Build & Run

To build the image and start the container:

docker compose up -d --build

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🏗️ Building manually with Docker CLI

If you prefer building and running with standard Docker CLI commands:

Build Image

To ensure Docker fetches the latest RC packages rather than using build-cache, use the --no-cache flag:

docker build --no-cache -t jellyfin-rc:latest .

Run Container

docker run -d \
  --name=jellyfin-rc \
  --net=host \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Etc/UTC \
  -v ./config:/config \
  -v /path/to/media:/data \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  jellyfin-rc:latest

---

🔄 Updating to the Newest Release Candidate

Because the Dockerfile dynamically fetches the latest .deb packages during the build step, you can pull and build new RC updates anytime by running:

docker compose build --no-cache
docker compose up -d

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⚙️ Environment Variables & Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PUID	1000	User ID for file permissions
PGID	1000	Group ID for file permissions
TZ	Etc/UTC	Container Timezone
NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES	all	Exposes GPUs for NVIDIA transcode
NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES	compute,video,utility	Enables NVENC/NVDEC capabilities

---

🍿 Hardware Acceleration (VA-API / NVENC)

• Intel / AMD (VA-API / QuickSync): Uncomment the devices: mapping in docker-compose.yml:

  devices:
    - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
  

• NVIDIA GPU: Ensure the NVIDIA Container Toolkit is installed on your host system and keep the NVIDIA_* environment variables enabled.