Update: Jellyfin now provides a Bash installation script for APT users: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/installation/linux/#debuntu-debian-ubuntu-and-derivatives-using-apt

Overall it’s quite straightforward, especially when compared with installing the LAMP environment or WordPress, thanks to the APT package manager.

For an Ubuntu server, refer to https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/installation/linux#ubuntu.

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11

sudo apt install apt-transport-https

sudo add-apt-repository universe

curl -fsSL https://repo.jellyfin.org/ubuntu/jellyfin_team.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-jellyfin.gpg

echo "deb [arch=$( dpkg --print-architecture )] https://repo.jellyfin.org/ubuntu $( lsb_release -c -s ) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jellyfin.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install jellyfin

Done.

Furthermore, we’d like to enable HTTPS to our sites, and maybe we’d want this server to be with more usages such as running another WordPress website. For this consideration, Nginx with reverse proxy may be the best solution:

Install Nginx to run a web server. Install certbot to acquire certificates for TLS encryption. Easy, just google for it and follow the official documentation.

Open a browser and visit http://your_ip:8096/ to log in to your newly built Jellyfin server. Initialize the settings, then change the base URL to /jellyfin (as in the following document) or another path of your choice. Remember to use the same path in the Nginx configuration.

Read the docs: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/networking/nginx.html#https-config-example

The path change takes effect only after Jellyfin restarts. It took me a long time to realize that pressing “Save changes” was not enough.

Mostly you just need to copy the configuration as the doc shows. Only one thing needs attention: in the following part, change the variable to IP address as the comment says.

1
2
3

# If you aren't using DNS, remove the resolver line and point the
# variable to an IP address, for example:
set $jellyfin 127.0.0.1;

Now restart nginx.service, enter your_domain/your_path in the browser, and everything should work. Enjoy your own Jellyfin server—perhaps with family and friends!