Emby Media Server Docker Service

This is an easy to manage service which runs Emby Media Server within Docker.

By running Emby as a system service using Docker and docker-compose, this ensures Emby can be portably run in any X86_64 system which has systemd and Docker available.

Prerequisites

• Docker
• docker-compose

Try out Emby

Trying out Emby is easy. You can start Emby with the following command.

docker-compose up -d

Then, visit http://localhost:8096.

To stop Emby without deleting Emby data run the following.

docker-compose down

To stop Emby, delete all data, and the Emby image built run the following.

docker-compose down -v --rmi all

Running as a service

When you have Emby configured the way you want, you can easily install your current Emby service as a systemd service. This will use all existing docker-compose configuration and Emby data configured within this service. It simply uses systemd to control docker-compose on start, stop, and restart.

Note: Before controlling the Emby systemd service it is recommended to shut down Emby if you started it outside of systemd. Simply run:

docker-compose down

Install Emby as a service.

./install-emby-service.sh

Customizing Emby version

Modify the emby service in docker-compose.yml with an environment section to customize the version of Emby.

services:
  emby:
    environment:
      EMBY_VERSION: 3.5.2.0

Adding media to Emby

Modify the emby service in docker-compose.yml and update the volumes section. Do not delete the emby-data volume or your emby service will lose its configuration every time the service is restarted.

It is recommended to attach your media as read-only to Emby so that Emby doesn't accidentally delete your media. Mounting as read-only adds an extra layer of security.

services:
  emby:
    volumes:
      - emby-data:/var/lib/emby
      - /path/to/Movies:/media/Movies:ro
      - /path/to/Music:/media/Music:ro
      - /path/to/Photos:/media/Photos:ro

You might want to still be able to upload photos to Emby. For this, you can mount a read-write photos directory in which Emby can access.

- /path/to/Emby-Uploaded-Photos:/media/Emby-Uploaded-Photos

In the above example, Emby will need write access to /media/Emby-Uploaded-Photos. To grant Emby write access do the following:

# Enter the running Emby container as root
docker-compose exec -u root emby /bin/bash
# Now inside of the container change permissions
chown -R emby: /media/Emby-Uploaded-Photos