Over many years spent tinkering, tweaking, and fine-tuning my seedbox setup, I've constantly searched for a definitive guide to fully automate my media workflow—but I've only ever found fragmented snippets scattered across Reddit threads, GitHub repositories, and countless Google searches. It's frustrating for anyone, beginner or veteran, to piece this puzzle together seamlessly. There’s simply too much conflicting information, incomplete instructions, and cryptic technical jargon that leave many users stuck and overwhelmed. With that frustration in mind, I've meticulously gathered and distilled the knowledge from my trials (and plenty of errors!), alongside valuable nuggets of wisdom gleaned from various online communities, to craft the ultimate step-by-step guide that anyone can follow.
My goal? To help you automate your seedbox effortlessly, reliably, and—crucially—in a SECURE manner! Whether you're just getting started or have been tweaking setups for years, this guide will streamline your media management process from start to finish.
By the end of this guide, you'll have a powerful, fully-automated media system that's secure, efficient, and hassle-free.
¶ Getting Started
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Prerequisites
Everything you need to have in place before deploying your Docker stack—network setup, storage, and basic tools. -
Docker
DeploymentStep-by-step guide to deploying your media stack with Docker and Compose, from cloning to spinning up containers.
¶ Core Services
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Gluetun
A sleek, all-in-one VPN client supporting multiple providers—your digital Swiss Army knife, ensuring your privacy remains rock-solid while torrenting and streaming. -
Traefik
A powerful, Docker-native reverse proxy and load balancer that automatically handles routing, SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt, and service discovery. -
Watchtower
Keep your Docker containers effortlessly up-to-date. Watchtower monitors your running containers and automatically pulls and deploys new image versions—no manual updates needed.
¶ Downloader
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qBittorrent
The reliable, open-source alternative to µTorrent, built on Qt and libtorrent-rasterbar, providing a lightweight yet robust solution for downloading torrents with ease. -
qBittorrent
Port ForwarderAutomatically syncs qBittorrent’s ports through Gluetun, ensuring maximum connectivity and optimal speeds without manual port configuration headaches.
¶ Indexers
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Sonarr
Your personal TV assistant, automatically fetching, sorting, renaming, and even upgrading episodes. It monitors RSS feeds and ensures your TV shows are always ready and waiting. -
Radarr
Automates movie downloads and management—think CouchPotato, but smarter, slicker, and fully integrated into your workflow, making movie management a breeze. -
Prowlarr
Centralized management for torrent and Usenet indexers—effortlessly integrated across Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, and Readarr, eliminating the hassle of configuring indexers individually for each app. -
Unpackerr
Watches completed downloads, swiftly unpacking files so they’re instantly ready for import by your media apps, removing yet another manual step from your workflow.
¶ Jellyfin Setup
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Jellyfin
A fully open-source, self-hosted media server with no paywalls. Jellyfin makes your entire media library accessible from anywhere with beautiful apps and community-driven features. -
Jellyseerr
A request management tool for Jellyfin, forked from Overseerr, built to help you organize and approve content requests within your Jellyfin media ecosystem.
¶ Plex Setup
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Plex
A polished, feature-rich media server that organizes and streams your content to nearly any device. It includes remote access, metadata fetching, and more—all with a slick UI. -
Overseerr
Streamlined media request management, neatly integrated with Sonarr, Radarr, and Plex. Overseerr handles user requests smoothly, simplifying the media approval and addition process.