# Self-Hosted Streaming with Jellyfin and ngrok – A Personal Weekend Project It all started with a simple need — I wanted to watch some old movies and personal family videos stored on my desktop. My niece had also backed up a bunch of vacation clips from her phone onto my machine, and now that she’s back home, I needed an easy way to send them back to her without juggling USB drives or cloud uploads. Being someone from a DevOps/SRE background, these small personal needs often spiral into fun infrastructure experiments. So, I figured, why not use this as a chance to self-host a media server? That’s when I turned to [Jellyfin](https://jellyfin.org/) — a free, open-source media streaming solution. Paired with `ngrok` securely sharing access with family, I now had my very own private “Netflix” running directly from my Linux desktop. This was one of those side projects that started as a practical fix but turned into an unexpectedly enjoyable weekend build. In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly how I set it all up using Docker and ngrok — clean, simple, and DevOps-style. ### 📌 Why Jellyfin? As someone who values open-source tools and self-hosted alternatives, Jellyfin hits the sweet spot: * Fully open-source * No telemetry or licensing headaches * Supports local media, subtitles, transcoding, and even user profiles I had a folder full of personal and family videos collecting digital dust. Jellyfin gave them a Netflix-like interface without the surveillance. --- ## 🐳 Step 1: Run Jellyfin in Docker To keep things clean and reproducible (DevOps mantra!), I went with Docker. ```bash docker run -d \ --name jellyfin \ -p 8096:8096 \ -v /home/user/Documents/p2p:/media \ jellyfin/jellyfin ``` A few things to note: * `-d` runs it in the background * Port 8096 is Jellyfin’s default web UI * The `-v` mount points my local media directory into the container at `/media` Once the container spins up, hit [`http://localhost:8096`](http://localhost:8096) on your browser and follow the setup wizard. You’ll be able to: * Create an admin account * Add your media libraries * Configure transcoding and user access Simple and smooth. --- ## 🌍 Step 2: Access Jellyfin from Anywhere Using `ngrok` Since I didn’t want to mess with router port forwarding or dynamic DNS at home (and certainly not expose ports to the internet unsafely), `ngrok` was the perfect plug-and-play solution. ### Install ngrok ```bash wget https://bin.equinox.io/c/bNyj1mQVY4c/ngrok-v3-stable-linux-amd64.tgz tar -xvf ngrok-v3-stable-linux-amd64.tgz sudo mv ngrok /usr/local/bin ngrok version ``` You’ll need an [ngrok account](https://ngrok.com/) to get an auth token. Then: ```bash ngrok config add-authtoken ``` ### Create a Tunnel for Port 8096 ```bash ngrok http 8096 ``` Boom! You’ll get a public HTTPS URL [`https://abc123.ngrok.io`](https://abc123.ngrok.io) that tunnels securely to your local Jellyfin instance. ### Bonus: Protect it with Basic Auth To prevent unauthorized access, use basic auth: ```bash ngrok http -auth="username:password" 8096 ``` Replace with your credentials. Now even if someone stumbles upon the link, they’ll need to authenticate first. --- ## 📦 Alternate: Run ngrok in Docker If you like consistency (like me), you might prefer running `ngrok` in a container too: ```bash docker run -it \ -e NGROK_AUTHTOKEN= \ ngrok/ngrok http 8096 ``` Optional: include `-auth="username:password"` in the command above if you want the same security via Docker. --- ## 🔒 A Quick Word on Security This setup is intended for personal use. If you're planning to stream across multiple users or set up a family server, consider: * Running Jellyfin behind a proper reverse proxy (like Nginx) * Using a free domain with Let's Encrypt certs * Disabling public tunnels when not in use * Not exposing write access to the mounted media directory (read-only is safer) --- ## 🎯 Real-World Use Cases 1. **Personal Netflix Clone** – Watch your ripped DVDs or archived home videos from anywhere. 2. **Test Media Playback Over Slow Networks** – Useful if you’re tuning transcoding profiles for a home server. 3. **Portable Demos** – Great for showing media apps at meetups or events without deploying to a cloud server. 4. **Media Backup Viewer** – Remote preview of a NAS or cold storage drive contents. --- ## 🧠 Final Thoughts For anyone in DevOps, self-hosting isn't just about saving money. It's about owning your stack, learning through tinkering, and reusing familiar tools (like Docker, tunneling, logs) in a low-stress, real-life scenario. This Jellyfin + ngrok combo was less than an hour-long weekend project, but the satisfaction it gives — seeing your own media beautifully indexed and remotely accessible — is real. Give it a try. This might just become your favorite side gig for relaxing after a long sprint. --- If you found this helpful or tried something similar, I’d love to hear about your setup, tweaks, or war stories. Leave a comment on [Hashnode](https://hashnode.com/@cyrilsebastian) or connect via [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/yourprofile), I’m always happy to connect and geek out about self-hosting and home lab fun. Happy streaming! 🎥🍿 --- ImageCredits: Photo by [Marques Kaspbrak](https://unsplash.com/@popcornmatch?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/black-flat-screen-tv-turned-on-on-brown-wooden-tv-rack-n1amn-SHKzw?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)