Set up your Navarre server on a NAS

This is the headline path: the app writes the whole recipe and you paste it once. There are no config files to edit, no command line, and no password anywhere in the file. Budget about ten minutes, most of which is your NAS unpacking the server.

Doing this on something else? A Linux box is the same file plus one terminal line. A Windows PC is handled for you by the Windows app. Already running Plex, Emby, or Jellyfin 10.11 or 12? You do not need this page at all: open Navarre and point it at the server you have.

What you need

  • An x86-64 NAS that stays on - one with an Intel or AMD processor; the server does not run on ARM-based models - with its Docker app installed. It is called Docker Manager or Container Manager on some boxes, and Container Station on others.
  • A folder of films on that NAS. Navarre mounts it read-only: this server cannot write to, move, rename, or delete anything in your media, ever.
  • An empty folder for the server's own data. Back that one up. It is the only thing here that cannot be rebuilt: your libraries, your household's accounts, and everybody's watch history.
  • About 1 GB of disk for the server, plus whatever artwork and subtitles it caches later.
  • Any Navarre app to drive it, from the download page. The phone is the easiest, because typing is easiest there.

Folder names with a space in them are refused rather than quoted, and the app tells you which one to rename. A NAS's own Docker app builds an unquoted command line, so a file that quotes its way around a space works in a terminal and fails in the app you are about to paste it into. That is the hardest kind of failure to help with, so Navarre does not write one.

How your films should be named

One folder per film, named Title (Year), with the video file inside it named the same way:

Movies/Blade Runner (1982)/Blade Runner (1982).mkv
Television/Breaking Bad (2008)/Season 01/Breaking Bad S01E01.mkv

That is all that is required. If your folders already carry artwork and information files from another app, they are read and they win over anything fetched later. Your own edits are never overwritten.

The setup, start to finish

  1. Any Navarre appOpen Navarre and choose Set up Navarre, then On a NAS.
  2. Any Navarre appTell it where your films live on the NAS, and where the server's own data folder should be. These are the paths as the NAS sees them, exactly as its own file browser shows them.
  3. Any Navarre appNavarre writes the file and shows it to you with a Copy button. Read it if you like: it explains every line, and it holds no passwords.
  4. Your NASOpen Docker Manager or Container Manager on your NAS, make a new project, and paste it in. Then start it. The first start unpacks the server, which takes a couple of minutes on a slow connection.
  5. Any Navarre appPress I have started it. Navarre looks for the new server on your home network and finds it by itself, because the file it wrote shares the NAS's own network.
  6. Any Navarre appChoose your name and password, in the app. It goes straight to your own server over your home network and is never written to a file. Write it down where the rest of your passwords live: there is no admin web page and no password-reset email. If you ever lose it, the way back in is in the install guide and it needs somebody at the machine.
  7. Any Navarre appNavarre shows you every folder it found, with a proposed library beside it and how many files are in it. Rename one, change what kind it is, or leave it out. Nothing is created until you say so.
  8. Any Navarre appIt builds your libraries and connects the server to your Navarre account, which is what switches on artwork and details for anything your folders do not already describe. Posters arrive on their own, in the background.
  9. TV and phoneOpen Navarre on your other devices. They find the server on the home network by themselves and you sign in with the name and password from step 6. This is your library login, not an email address.

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The file Navarre writes, line by line

You never have to type this. It is here because a compose file is the one thing Navarre hands over and never sees again, and six months from now it is the only documentation you have. Your own copy will name your folders and your time zone.

services:
  navarre-server:

    # The exact version of Navarre's server this app knows. Never "latest": a
    # moving name means your server changes underneath you on a restart you did
    # not ask for.
    image: "ghcr.io/navarredr/navarre-server:2.0.6"
    container_name: "navarre-server"

    # Starts again after a crash or a reboot - but stays stopped if you stop it.
    restart: "unless-stopped"

    # Shares this box's network, which is what lets the Navarre app find this
    # server on your home network without you typing an address anywhere.
    network_mode: "host"

    # The safety block. The server gives up every special permission Linux would
    # normally hand it, keeps only the one that lets it READ your films whoever
    # owns them, cannot gain more later, and runs with its own filesystem locked
    # read-only.
    cap_drop: ["ALL"]
    cap_add: ["DAC_READ_SEARCH"]
    security_opt: ["no-new-privileges:true"]
    read_only: true
    tmpfs: ["/tmp:rw,noexec,nosuid,size=256m"]

    # A ceiling, so this server can never crowd out everything else on the box.
    mem_limit: "3g"
    memswap_limit: "3g"

    # <folder on your box> : <where the server sees it>
    # The first one is the server's own data - back it up. Every other one is a
    # folder of yours, mounted "ro", which means READ-ONLY.
    volumes: ["/volume1/navarre-data:/config", "/volume1/media:/media:ro"]

    environment:
      # Leaves the setup window open on a brand-new data folder, so the Navarre
      # app can finish the setup for you. It closes for good the moment it does.
      NAVARRE_SETUP: "wizard"
      # The folders above, so the server knows where to look for your films.
      NAVARRE_MEDIA_MOUNTS: "/media"
      # Your time zone, so "played last night" means last night.
      TZ: "Etc/UTC"
  • No user or group ids. There is no PUID and no PGID to work out, because the server does not run as you. It keeps exactly one Linux permission, the one that lets it read your files whoever owns them, and it has no write access to them at all.
  • The version is pinned, never latest. That is also how you update, and how you go back: see Updating.
  • If something else on the NAS already uses a port, the file says which line to change and the app tells you the same thing.

Watching away from home, from a NAS

If you want your library outside the house, the setup has one more step and it adds a second service to the same file - so it is still one paste. That helper is what gives your server its own encrypted web address through your own free Tailscale account. There is no port forwarding, no reverse proxy, no certificate, and no router change.

It is pinned the same way the server is, and it is the one other line you will ever change:

  navarre-companion:

    # The exact version of this part Navarre knows. Never "latest", for the same
    # reason the server above is pinned.
    image: "ghcr.io/navarredr/navarre-companion:1.1.5"
    container_name: "navarre-companion"

It mounts no folder of yours at all - only its own settings, its Tailscale key, and your server's data folder read-only, so it can read the one file that says which Navarre account your server belongs to. It also keeps none of the extra permissions the server keeps, because unlike the server it never reads your films.

The television turns that access on and off once it is running. Setting it up the first time takes one paste on your phone, and the TV passes it over with a code. Watching away from home is the one-time unlock; everything on your own network is included with the apps.

After it is running

  • Back up the data folder. Your films are somewhere else and this server never writes to them, so that one folder is the whole of what a backup has to carry. Your server can also take a nightly copy of it by itself - Settings → Your server shows whether it is on.
  • Adding a folder later is done from Settings → Your server → Libraries, on any screen, by whoever set the server up.
  • A drive that drops off the bus is already handled. An empty read-only folder looks exactly like one whose films were all deleted, so this server refuses to empty a library in one pass: the titles stay, you get one line saying why, and they come back on the next scan after the drive does.
  • Moving to a bigger NAS is the data folder plus the same file. Choose your container paths once and leave them alone: every film takes its identity from the path the server sees, so changing the right-hand side of a volume line is what loses a resume position, and changing the left-hand side costs nothing.

Stuck anywhere? The Help & FAQ covers the questions people actually hit, and support@navarre.tv reaches a human. Moving in from another server? Moving from Jellyfin brings your people and their watch history with you.