Audiobooks on Unraid: an audiobook server from Community Applications

Unraid makes a good home for an audiobook library: the books sit on an array share, and the server runs as a container next to them. AudioSilo is in Community Applications (the Apps tab) as the LinuxServer.io image, lscr.io/linuxserver/audiosilo: the AudioSilo server, its web player and ffmpeg, rebuilt automatically after each AudioSilo release. Installing it takes a template and a couple of paths.

Before you start: a share for your books

If your audiobooks aren’t on the array yet, create a share for them (for example audiobooks, at /mnt/user/audiobooks) and copy them in. Give each book its own folder, inside Author/Series/ or Author/; How to organise audiobook folders explains why.

The container only ever reads this share. AudioSilo never writes to your books, so the template mounts the share read-only.

1. Install from the Apps tab

1. Open Apps and search for AudioSilo.
2. Pick the one from linuxserver’s Repository and click Install.
3. Fill in the template:
   • Audiobooks (/audiobooks in the container): your share, for example /mnt/user/audiobooks.
   • WebUI: the port, 8080 unless something else uses it.
4. Under Show more settings:
   • Appdata (/config): where the server keeps its database, config.yaml and certificates. Prefer a cache or pool path such as /mnt/cache/appdata/audiosilo, so the database isn’t on the slower user-share layer.
   • PUID / PGID: leave Unraid’s defaults, 99 and 100 (nobody:users).
5. Click Apply.

2. Find the admin password in the log

On its very first start the server creates an admin account with a random password, and prints it once in the container log. In the Docker tab, click the AudioSilo icon and choose Logs:

========================================================
 AudioSilo first-run setup - store these now, shown once
========================================================
  Admin username : admin
  Admin password : <generated password>
  Auth code      : <generated code>
  Config file    : /config/config.yaml

Copy the password and the auth code somewhere safe now. The server keeps only hashes of them, so it can’t show them again. If you miss them before setting anything up, stop the container, empty its appdata folder and start it again for a fresh banner.

3. Open it and add the library

Click the AudioSilo icon and choose WebUI. The server uses its own self-signed certificate out of the box, so the browser warns you the first time; accept it.

• /admin is the admin console: sign in as admin with the password from the log.
• /web is the web player.
• / is the connect page, where people pair their devices.

In the console, click Add your first library and enter /audiobooks, the path inside the container (not the /mnt/user/... path). Books show up at once; durations, chapters and covers fill in as the scan runs.

4. Reaching it from outside your network

The self-signed certificate is fine in a browser at home. To listen away from home, and for the iPhone and Android apps, the server needs an address with a certificate the devices trust. On Unraid that usually means a reverse proxy you may already run, such as SWAG or Nginx Proxy Manager. In the admin console under Server > Settings:

• Either point the proxy at https://<unraid-ip>:8080 as it is, or set HTTPS mode to Off, restart the container and point the proxy at http://<unraid-ip>:8080. With HTTPS off, the Docker tab’s WebUI link still opens https://: edit the container, switch to Advanced View and set its WebUI field to http://[IP]:[PORT:8080].
• Set Public address to the address people use, for example https://books.example.com, so invite links and QR codes point there.
• Add the proxy’s address to Trusted proxies, so rate limiting and sign-in lockouts see each visitor’s real address.

Only turn HTTPS off behind a proxy that serves HTTPS itself. Listen away from home covers the options, including Let’s Encrypt without a proxy.

Settings can also be given as AUDIOSILO_* variables on the template (Add another Path, Port, Variable, Label or Device), such as AUDIOSILO_PUBLIC_URL. A variable wins over the console, which then shows the setting as locked.

5. Updates

When a new image is out, the Docker tab shows update ready; apply it there or let the CA Auto Update plugin do it. The LinuxServer.io image follows AudioSilo’s releases and also picks up base image and ffmpeg security updates. Your appdata and books aren’t touched by an update.

Back up the appdata folder with the rest of your Unraid appdata. The server also snapshots its own database every night by default, into the same folder.

Already running the AudioSilo image?

If you set up ghcr.io/kodestar/audiosilo-server by hand earlier, you can move to the Community Applications app without losing anything. The data is the same; only the paths inside the container differ (/config instead of /data, /audiobooks instead of /library):

1. Note any AUDIOSILO_* variables the old container sets (skip AUDIOSILO_WEB_DIR; this image has the web player built in).
2. Stop and remove the old container. Its data folder stays.
3. In that folder’s config.yaml, change any path that starts with /data/ to /config/, including tls.cache_dir.
4. Install the app with Appdata pointing at that folder, and add the variables back.
5. Either map your books to /library in the template, or keep /audiobooks and change the library’s folder in the admin console.

Users, progress and settings carry over. The Unraid page in the docs has the same steps with more detail.

Next

• Pair your phone with the AudioSilo app.
• Fix covers and series by matching your books to the community database.
• Invite the household from People > Invite someone: one dialog makes the account and shows a QR code.