Emby, robust opensource media solution

One of Freedif’s reader recently introduced me Emby, an open source media solution that can easily integrate will all your devices (Smartphone, SmartTV, etc…) and even with XBMC.

I’m a big fan of Subsonic and Sonerez to listen to all my musics on the go, at home, or at any places (Office, friends’ place,…), but were a bit disappointed on the integration with XBMC.

This is where Emby take the lead.

Emby, is a web based open source media solution to store and share your music, videos, … across all your devices. After the installation it will even discover your network to look for XBMC service or others DNLA compatible devices.

With a nice interface, Emby lets your easily managed your files, share them with your family/friends. You can also count on Parental Controls, Mobile/TV apps and even Cloud syncing.

On the the strength of Emby is its large choice of apps (For SmartTV, Xbox360, Kodi, Chromecast, etc…) and also its large choice of plugins (Live TV, metadata plugins, Cloud Sync with Dropbox and others …)

The installation is actually very easy since they are maintaining repositories for most of Linux Distro (Arch, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu) and have installation steps for all of them, including for Docker or from source.

I can clearly feel that they have been putting a lot of resources on this service with a great results. I definitely recommend you to try it out.

 

Installation

Let’s assume you are on Debian (As I am)

 

1) Add Emby repository in your source list

– If you are still on Debian 7 (Did not upgrade yet to Debian 8?), in root (or with sudo), run:

wget -qO - http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:emby/Debian_7.0/Release.key | apt-key add -
sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/emby/Debian_7.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/emby-server.list"

– If you are on Debian 8 (Like I am now), run:

wget -qO - http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:emby/Debian_8.0/Release.key | apt-key add -
sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/emby/Debian_8.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/emby-server.list"

 

2) Update your sources and install the required dependencies

Still in root, run:

apt-get update
apt-get install mono-runtime mediainfo libsqlite3-dev imagemagick-6.q8 libmagickwand-6.q8-2 libmagickcore-6.q8-2

 

3) Install Emby

apt-get install emby-server

 

4) Start Emby

service emby-server start

Emby will now be accessible through http://YourIP:8096

You will have access to the web interface to finalize the configuration of Emby. You will have the chance to create a user admin, add the path to your musics, videos, and few others options.

Now everything should work like a charm, but you may want to access to your Emby service directly through em.domain.tld instead of remembering the port and/or being blocked if some firewalls don’t allow such ports.

This will be easily doable through a dedicated virtualhost.

 

Virtualhost configuration

– Obviously, the first thing you need to do is to create a CNAME or A redirection through your domain name registrar, like em.domain.tld

– Then, you need to install the mod-proxy-html

apt-get install libapache2-mod-proxy-html

while you will also need to activate the mod-proxy-http (Already installed)

a2enmod proxy_http

– Then reuse this simple virtualhost:

Still in root:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/emby

and copy paste:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.tld
        ServerName em.domain.tld

        ProxyRequests Off
        <Proxy *>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
        </Proxy>
        ProxyPass / http://localhost:8096/
        ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8096/
</VirtualHost>

Simply restart your apache service

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you should be able to access to your Emby service directly through http://em.domain.tld