fhriley/kodi-headless-novnc

A headless install of kodi in a docker container. Commonly used with MySQL Kodi setup to allow library updates via web interface.

https://hub.docker.com/r/fhriley/kodi-headless-novnc

https://github.com/fhriley/kodi-headless-novnc

This image has 2 major advantages over other headless images:

1. The Kodi GUI is available in a web browser on port 8000 or over VNC on port 5900. This means you don't need a second "real" Kodi running to configure everything.

2. This Kodi image does not use any patches to modify the code, which means it can easily be updated to any new versions of Kodi.

Usage

docker run --name=kodi-headless-novnc \
  -d --init \
  -v <MY_DATA_PATH>:/data \
  -e KODI_DB_HOST=<MY_KODI_DBHOST> \
  -e KODI_DB_USER=<MY_KODI_DBUSER> \
  -e KODI_DB_PASS=<MY_KODI_DBPASS> \
  -e TZ=<MY_TIMEZONE> \
  -p 5900:5900/tcp \
  -p 8000:8000/tcp \
  -p 8080:8080/tcp \
  -p 9090:9090/tcp \
  -p 9777:9777/udp \
  fhriley/kodi-headless-novnc:Nexus

Docker compose example:

version: "3"

services:
  kodi:
   image: fhriley/kodi-headless-novnc:Nexus
   restart: always
   init: true
   ports:
     - "5900:5900/tcp"
     - "8000:8000/tcp"
     - "8080:8080/tcp"
     - "9090:9090/tcp"
     - "9777:9777/udp"
   environment:
     KODI_DB_HOST: 192.168.1.246
     KODI_DB_USER: user
     KODI_DB_PASS: password
     TZ: America/New_York
   volumes:
     - ./kodi_data:/data

Ports

Volumes

Environment Variables

Tags

It is strongly recommended that you use the codename tag rather than latest. Docker will automatically pull the correct architecture for your platform.

User / Group Identifiers

Sometimes when using data volumes (-v flags) permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container. We avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user KODI_UID and group KODI_GID. Ensure the data volume directory on the host is owned by the same user you specify and it will "just work" ™.

To find yours use id user as below:

  $ id <dockeruser>
    uid=1001(dockeruser) gid=1001(dockergroup) groups=1001(dockergroup)

In this instance KODI_UID=1001 and KODI_GID=1001.

Setting up the application

The database connection settings will be automatically configured the first time the container is started and stored in /data/.kodi/userdata/advancedsettings.xml. Many other settings are within this file, also. You may modify this file after it is generated. You may also mount your own version. If you mount your own version, the database configuration variables (KODI_DB*) will not be used.

If you intend to use this kodi instance to perform library tasks other than merely updating, eg. library cleaning etc, it is important to copy over the sources.xml from the host machine that you performed the initial library scan on to the userdata folder of this instance, otherwise database loss can and most likely will occur.

Info

• Shell access whilst the container is running: docker exec -it kodi-headless-novnc bash
• To monitor the logs of the container in realtime: docker logs -f kodi-headless-novnc

Credits

• linuxserver (original headless container)
• matthuisman (this README)

Fast Scanning

The below works if your media is stored on the same machine as this docker container and your using smb:// to share that media on the network.

First, mount your host media directory somewhere inside the container so Kodi can see it.
eg. --mount type=bind,source=/sharedfolders/pool,target=/media

Now, the below magic is done in Kodis advancedsettings.xml

<pathsubstitution>
  <substitute>
    <from>smb://192.168.20.3/sharedfolders/pool/</from>
    <to>/media/</to>
  </substitute>
</pathsubstitution>

That's it. Now instead of always needing to scan over smb://, it will replace that with /media and scan much quicker. When it does find new items, they are correctly stored in the SQL using their smb:// path

Kodi crashes

If Kodi immediately crashes upon container startup, please see the following for a possible fix.