I have been torrenting the same primitive way for a long time. Turn on a VPN, open up a browser I only use for this purpose, go to tpb or yts, grab my movie, and shut it all down when the movies over.

I’ve only updated my torrent client in this time, the method has not evolved.

Now im interested in self hosting jellyfin with an arr stack, with the end goal being to share it with friends and family outside my lan. I’d like to use docker containers so its all containerized, and of course keep it safe and secure.

What kind of set up, from hardware to software, would you recommend to get this going? Any guides in particular? I’m especially iffy on allowing remote access for non-tech savvy family (like a roku app), so any tips/guide recs for that would be helpful.

I’ve been searching around some and I’ve found a lot of resources but I’d like to get the opinions of people in here before diving in.

I have some beginner questions, for example: if I have the arr stack running in docker with a vpn, can I browse the internet non-anonymously on that same machine without compromising identifying details, assuming qbittorrent is configured to only move traffic through a VPN? (I’m wondering if I need a dedicated piece of hardware to run everything safely)

Tldr: Suggestions or guides for beginner setting up jellyfin/arr/ remote access for family?

  • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
    10·
    16 days ago

    May I a recommend a change in approach?

    Ditch the torrents for Usenet. Faster downloads, fully encrypted, none of the risks of torrents.

    I used to torrent the old fashioned way (and still do for some obscure stuff), but I switched over to usenet.

    The arr stack fully supports usenet natively.

    You can check out https://trash-guides.info/ for a massive amount of information.

    The TLDR is:

    1. get a usenet subscription. I use easy news, viper news and one more I cannot recall. Easy news unlimited, the other two are “block” accounts from an entirely separate usenet provider to “fill in the blanks” if any files are missing from my main provider.

    2. sign up for several indexers. DrunkenSlug is my favorite. I am subbed to a few more as well. The more you have the more you’ll have access to.

    3. set up your arr stack. Use Prowlarr to configure your indexers, which will propagate them to Radarr, Sonarr, and Lidarr.

    4. set up your download client with your provider configuration. I used SABnzb

    5. fine tune your Sonarr and Radarr. Try to prioritize releases/codecs/encodes/remuxes based on your needs. I just try to grab h265/x265 or HEVC to reduce storage consumption as much as possible. You can even specify if you want 5.1 audio, Dolby Atmos, HDR, etc. it’s all there in trash guides.

    6. set up your Jellyfin. There is where I cannot help because I use Plex. I did set it up and it scanned my library quite well but it’s just not there yet for normal users (friends and family)

    This is just a very high level overview. Feel free to ask tho I am not a Usenet/Arr guru by any means but my setup works.

    Edit: you can still incorporate torrents into your workflow but you really don’t need to. In the off chance you can’t find something on Usenet and you find a torrent, just download it normally and throw it in your library. Jellyfin will pick it up and pull the relevant metadata for you. I do the same thing using YT-DLP for videos.

    • richmondez@lemdro.idEnglish
      5·
      16 days ago

      While I’m sure usenet us all you say it is and more, I object at a philosophical level to paying for what is essentially a piracy service.

      • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
        2·
        16 days ago

        And you know what? I do tend to agree with your view. It’s just that I’ve reached a point where I can’t be bothered with private trackers and some of the weird rules some of them have. Specially now that I migrated away from a seed box to an in-house (literally) server.

        The convenience is top notch tho!

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      Usenet is good for some things, torrents are still king for others

      Like if I want a specific release of a movie in a certain quality, like a dv remux then I might pop on blu or ptp. 90% of the time I’ll just grab a dv/hdr10 remux on usenet though

      Anime is all about trackers, ab/baka/nyaa destroy usenet. Animetosho makes usenet passable but still destroyed by the first three

      Music is the same. If I want some basic mainstream release in scene quality then sure usenet is fine. If I want to be sure it’s tagged decently and actually a solid 16bit flac? Red/orpheus. If I want anything remotely niche, international artists, indie shit, like even singles and eps by popular artists? Or I’ll pop on soulseek but the downside there is I can’t figure out how to automate it

      • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
        3·
        16 days ago

        For music I would definitely agree with you. RIP What.CD

        AnimeTosho covers the majority if not all my anime needs. Makes it easy for people to just add stuff to plex watchlist, and it gets automatically downloaded with the preferred quality and language settings.

        I still have a (very) old Baka account. That site is a godsend. Nyaa comes in clutch at times, I won’t deny that.

        Movies and TV shows, tho? Usenet. Specially western stuff.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      16 days ago

      Usenet is an excellent suggestion. I wish I wasn’t too poor for it. I miss the days when it was included in an ISPs internet connection.

      It’s definitely easier than trying to break your way into the private tracker game. Trash guides is top tier useful stuff.

      • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        16 days ago

        Usenet: you missed the window but Black Friday and Labor Day are in my experience the best time to sign up. I pay $35/yr unlimited.

        Private tracker: it’s not as hard as you think

        Get in red: either via invite (easy mode) or do their interview (not that difficult). Once you do you need to upload 25gb of stuff and have a (I think) 0.7 ratio (maybe 1.0?).

        Easiest way is to rip songs from streaming sites: https://github.com/nathom/streamrip and upload. If you’re fast and get a hot album you can literally get it in like 2 days. Don’t bother with insanely popular albums like if charli xcx or Tyler the creator or whoever drops something. Old heads on the site will have that shit scripted and dropped so fast. Or browse requests with bounty and upload whatever.

        Then you open up the invite forum. Then you ask for invites to wherever. Then you maintain ratio to not fuck over the person who invited you. Then you’re done, basically

      • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        16 days ago

        In that case, do the exact same thing and ignore Usenet.

        You can still automate everything and do everything I said with torrents!!

        Btw, there are excellent Usenet discounts. I currently pay approx… 50ish dollars a year for both providers and indexers? But I understand it may not be feasible. Just sharing the options.

        You can definitely still integrate the whole stack with both public and private trackers

  • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    16 days ago

    I recently had my first foray into this setup and I have found the arr stack to be all but useless on public trackers. I haven’t setup flaresolvarr so that I can use 1337x and maybe that is why it is so terrible for me but prowlarr couldn’t even find a fast and furious movie that is a popular, well seeded film.

    Maybe the addition of 1337 would make it much better but I’m skeptical as to how much difference that one place can make.

    I ultimately now just find what I need manually and add the torrent to my server via the web interface then leave it and everything else sorts itself, which I’m fine with doing.

    Maybe I’m missing something but I think the arr stack is massively overrated on public trackers. I’m going to look into Usenet next as someone else suggested but it isn’t anything I’ve ever used and I don’t have the money to pay for any right now anyway.

    • Brodysseus@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      1·
      16 days ago

      What do you use to clean up the files for jellyfin, or does that happen automatically? I mean things like cover art, consistent title format, etc

      I appreciate this take. Maybe I should keep it simple

  • Xanza@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    16 days ago

    Maybe I’m a foagie, but this method is still pretty great.

    1. setup rclone sync with one way sync from seedbox to network storage
    2. download torrent with seedbox
    3. seedbox automatically syncs with network storage
    4. use tiny media manager to format metadata and move from sync folder to media library folder
    5. purge torrent

    It’s mostly automatic. Only thing I have to do is add the torrents and purge the torrents, because everything else runs on a schedule. Why break what isn’t broken.

  • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    16 days ago

    I don’t know where you live but in some places of the world ISP couldn’t give a sack if you torrent or break into the fbi computers. Here All these local guys next door want is monthly cash and no angry calls during Christmas slowdowns

    Someone sends some notice to them it probably would land straight into trash bin or would simply lay there unopened for years, irreversibly damaged with zero sugar coke

    That is of course if the mailman manages to even deliver it. It could plainly disappear in the sorting center as if dematerialised by a chaotic force of underfunded bureaucracy.

    Still I am convinced they just throw these into the trash or assign spam tag. Unless of course they are local movies then they are scared those ISP fresh CS students and maybe they will comply if they are sober and memory still isn’t completely ravaged by years of academic abu… pursuits

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    I have some beginner questions, for example: if I have the arr stack running in docker with a vpn, can I browse the internet non-anonymously on that same machine without compromising identifying details, assuming qbittorrent is configured to only move traffic through a VPN? (I’m wondering if I need a dedicated piece of hardware to run everything safely)

    The answer to this question is you can setup a docker system (or podman) so that all the traffic in that pod (don’t know the docker term for this) will route through the vpn. A good image to accomplish this easily and successfully is gluetun – and it will only affect the traffic in the containers, not the rest of your computer.

    Personally, my setup is much more like yours and it works fine for me, except I use a VM. So all the activity gets confined to the VM and that makes a bit idiot-proof. Using automatic management in the torrent client, completed torrents get put in the correct directory. You could combine this with Jellyfin if you desired.

    My own problem with Jellyfin is if I ever use it for anything I want direct playback on all relevant devices, because my computer is not good enough for transcoding (and why waste the energy and time on on-demand transcoding, anyway?) so it requires some massaging of the data to get everything right. I only use it infrequently, practically on-demand. I don’t use Jellyfin for myself.

  • slaveOne@reddthat.comEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    Maybe it’s less of an issue these days, but about 10 years ago I tried Usenet and most things I tried to download would give “missing articles” errors (or something along those lines). This was with a paid Usenet account (don’t remember the name).