Set up qBitTorrent with Jackett for use with Starr apps

Riding on my excitement of having a good internet connection and having setup my home server now it’s time to self host a media server for movies, series and anime. I’ll setup qBitTorrent as the downloader, Jackett for the trackers, the Starr apps for the automatic downloading and Jellyfin as the media server manager/media viewer. This was going to be a single entry but it ended up being a really long one so I’m splitting it, this being the first part.

I’ll be exposing my stuff on a subdomain only so I can access it while out of home and for SSL certificates (not required), but shouldn’t be necessary and instead you can use a VPN (how to set up). For your reference, whenever I say “Starr apps” (*arr apps) I mean the family of apps such as Sonarr, Radarr, Bazarr, Readarr, Lidarr, etc..

Most of my config is based on the TRaSH-Guides (will be mentioned as “TRaSH” going forward). Specially get familiar with the TRaSH: Native folder structure and with the TRaSH: Hardlinks and instant moves. Will also use the default configurations based on the respective documentation for each Starr app and service, except when stated otherwise.

Everything here is performed in arch btw and all commands should be run as root unless stated otherwise.

Kindly note that I do not condone the use of torrenting for illegal activities. I take no responsibility for what you do when setting up anything shown here. It is for you to check your local laws before using automated downloaders such as Sonarr and Radarr.

Table of contents¶

Prerequisites¶

The specific programs are mostly recommendations, if you’re familiar with something else or want to change things around, feel free to do so but everything will be written with them in mind.

If you want to expose to a (sub)domain, then similar to my early tutorial entries (specially the website for the reverse proxy plus certificates):

• nginx for the reverse proxy.
• certbot for the SSL certificates.
• ufw for the firewall.
• yay to install AUR packages.
  • I mentioned how to install and use it on my previous entry: Manga server with Komga: yay.
• An A (and/or AAAA) or a CNAME for isos (or whatever you want to call it).
  • For automation software (qBitTorrent, Jackett, Starr apps, etc.). One subdomain per service can be used instead.

Note: I’m using the explicit 127.0.0.1 ip instead of localhost in the reverse proxies/services config as localhost resolves to ipv6 sometimes which is not configured on my server correctly. If you have it configured you can use localhost without any issue.

Directory structure¶

Basically following TRaSH: Native folder structure except for the directory permissions part, I’ll do the same as with my Komga setup guide to stablish default group permissions.

The desired behaviour is: set servarr as group ownership, set write access to group and whenever a new directory/file is created, inherit these permission settings. servarr is going to be a service user and I’ll use the root of a mounted drive at /mnt/a.

1. Create a service user called servarr (it could just be a group, too):

useradd -r -s /usr/bin/nologin -M -c "Servarr applications" servarr

2. Create the torrents directory and set default permissions:

cd /mnt/a # change this according to your setup
mkdir torrents
chown servarr:servarr torrents
chmod g+w torrents
chmod g+s torrents
setfacl -d -m g::rwx torrents
setfacl -d -m o::rx torrents

3. Check that the permissions are set correctly (getfacl torrents)

# file: torrents/
# owner: servarr
# group: servarr
# flags: -s-
user::rwx
group::rwx
other::r-x
default:user::rwx
default:group::rwx
default:other::r-x

4. Create the subdirectories you want with any user (I’ll be using servarr personally):

mkdir torrents/{tv,movies,anime}
chown -R servarr: torrents

5. Finally repeat steps 2 - 4 for the media directory.

The final directory structure should be the following:

root_dir
├── torrents
│   ├── movies
│   ├── music
│   └── tv
└── media
    ├── movies
    ├── music
    └── tv

Where root_dir is /mnt/a in my case. This is going to be the reference for the following applications set up.

Later, add the necessary users to the servarr group if they need write access, by executing:

gpasswd -a <USER> servarr

Jackett¶

Jackett is a “proxy server” (or “middle-ware”) that translates queries from apps (such as the Starr apps in this case) into tracker-specific http queries. Note that there is an alternative called Prowlarr that is better integrated with most if not all Starr apps, requiring less maintenance; I’ll still be sticking with Jackett, though.

Install from the AUR with yay:

yay -S jackett

I’ll be using the default 9117 port, but change accordingly if you decide on another one.

Reverse proxy¶

I’m going to have most of the services under the same subdomain, with different subdirectories. Create the config file isos.conf at the usual sites-available/enabled path for nginx:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name isos.yourdomain.com;

    location /jack { # you can change this to jackett or anything you'd like, but it has to match the jackett config on the next steps
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9117; # change the port according to what you want

        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
        proxy_redirect off;
    }
}

This is the basic reverse proxy config as shown in Jackett: Running Jackett behind a reverse proxy. The rest of the services will be added under different location block on their respective steps.

SSL certificate¶

Create/extend the certificate by running:

certbot --nginx

That will automatically detect the new subdomain config and create/extend your existing certificate(s). Restart the nginx service for changes to take effect:

systemctl restart nginx.service

Start using Jackett¶

You can now start/enable the jackett.service:

systemctl enable jackett.service
systemctl start jackett.service

It will autocreate the default configuration under /var/lib/jackett/ServerConfig.json, which you need to edit at least to change the BasePathOverride to match what you used in the nginx config:

{
    "Port": 9117,
    "SomeOtherConfigs": "some_other_values",
    "BasePathOverride": "/jack",
    "MoreConfigs": "more_values",
}

Also modify the Port if you changed it. Restart the jackett service:

systemctl restart jackett.service

It should now be available at https://isos.yourdomain.com/jack. Add an admin password right away by scroll down and until the first config setting; don’t forget to click on “Set Password”. Change any other config you want from the Web UI, too (you’ll need to click on the blue “Apply server settings” button).

Note that you need to set the “Base URL override” to http://127.0.0.1:9117 (or whatever port you used) so that the “Copy Torznab Feed” button works for each indexer.

Indexers¶

For Jackett, an indexer is just a configured tracker for some of the commonly known torrent sites. Jackett comes with a lot of pre-configured public and private indexers which usually have multiple URLs (mirrors) per indexer, useful when the main torrent site is down. Some indexers come with extra features/configuration depending on what the site specializes on.

To add an indexer click on the “+ Add Indexer” at the top of the Web UI and look for indexers you want, then click on the “+” icon on the far-most right for each indexer or select the ones you want (clicking on the checkbox on the far-most left of the indexer) and scroll all the way to the bottom to click on “Add Selected”. They then will show as a list with some available actions such as “Copy RSS Feed”, “Copy Torznab Feed”, “Copy Potato Feed”, a button to search, configure, delete and test the indexer, as shown below:

You can manually test the indexers by doing a basic search to see if they return anything, either by searching on each individual indexer by clicking on the magnifying glass icon on the right of the indexer or clicking on “Manual Search” button which is next to the “+ Add Indexer” button at the top right.

Explore each indexer’s configuration in case there is stuff you might want to change.

FlareSolverr¶

FlareSolverr is used to bypass certain protection that some torrent sites have. This is not 100% necessary and only needed for some trackers sometimes, it also doesn’t work 100%.

You could install from the AUR with yay:

yay -S flaresolverr-bin

At the time of writing, the flaresolverr package didn’t work for me because of python-selenium. flaresolverr-bin was updated around the time I was writing this, so that is what I’m using and what’s working fine so far, it contains almost everything needed (it has self contained libraries) except for xfvb.

Install dependencies via pacman:

pacman -S xorg-server-xvfb

You can now start/enable the flaresolverr.service:

systemctl enable flaresolverr.service
systemctl start flaresolverr.service

Verify that the service started correctly by checking the logs:

journalctl -fxeu flaresolverr

It should show “Test successful” and “Serving on http://0.0.0.0:8191” (which is the default). Jackett now needs to be configured by adding http://127.0.0.1:8191 almost at the end in the “FlareSolverr API URL” field, then click on the blue “Apply server settings” button at the beginning of the config section. This doesn’t need to be exposed or anything, it’s just an internal API that Jackett (or anything you want) will use.

qBitTorrent¶

qBitTorrent is a fast, stable and light BitTorrent client that comes with many features and in my opinion it’s a really user friendly client and my personal choice for years now. But you can choose whatever client you want, there are more lightweight alternatives such as Transmission.

Install the qbittorrent-nox package (“nox” as in “no X server”):

pacman -S qbittorrent-nox

By default the package doesn’t create any (service) user, but it is recommended to have one so you can run the service under it. Create the user, I’ll call it qbittorrent and leave it with the default homedir (/home):

useradd -r -m qbittorrent

Add the qbittorrent user to the servarr group:

gpasswd -a qbittorrent servarr

Decide a port number you’re going to run the service on for the next steps, the default is 8080 but I’ll use 30000; it doesn’t matter much, as long as it matches for all the config. This is the qbittorrent service port, it is used to connect to the instance itself through the Web UI or via API, you also need to open a port for listening to peer connections. Choose any port you want, for example 50000 and open it with your firewall, ufw in my case:

ufw allow 50000/tcp comment "qBitTorrent - Listening port"

Reverse proxy¶

Add the following location block into the isos.conf with whatever subdirectory name you want, I’ll call it qbt:

location /qbt/ {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:30000/; # change port to whatever number you want
    proxy_http_version 1.1;

    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $http_host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;

    proxy_cookie_path / "/; Secure";
    proxy_read_timeout 600s;
    proxy_send_timeout 600s;
}

This is taken from qBitTorrent: Nginx reverse proxy for Web UI. Restart the nginx service for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart nginx.service

Start using qBitTorrent¶

You can now start/enable the qbittorrent-nox@.service using the service account created (qbittorrent):

systemctl enable `qbittorrent-nox@qbittorrent.service
systemctl start `qbittorrent-nox@qbittorrent.service

This will start qbittorrent using default config. You need to change the port (in my case to 30000) and set qbittorrent to restart on exit (the Web UI has a close button). I guess this can be done before enabling/starting the service, but either way let’s create a “drop-in” file by “editing” the service:

systemctl edit `qbittorrent-nox@qbittorrent.service

Which will bring up a file editing mode containing the service unit and a space where you can add/override anything, add:

[Service]
Environment="QBT_WEBUI_PORT=30000" # or whatever port number you want
Restart=on-success
RestartSec=5s

When exiting from the file (if you wrote anything) it will create the override config. Restart the service for changes to take effect (you might be asked to reload the systemd daemon):

systemctl restart `qbittorrent-nox@qbittorrent.service

You can now head to https://isos.yourdomain.com/qbt/ and login with user admin and password adminadmin (by default). Change the default password right away by going to Tools -> Options -> Web UI -> Authentication. The Web UI is basically the same as the normal desktop UI so if you’ve used it it will feel familiar. From here you can threat it as a normal torrent client and even start using for other stuff other than the specified here.

Configuration¶

It should be usable already but you can go further and fine tune it, specially to some kind of “convention” as shown in TRaSH: qBitTorrent basic setup and subsequent qbittorrent guides.

I use all the suggested settings by TRaSH, where the only “changes” are for personal paths, ports, and in general connection settings that depend on my setup. The only super important setting I noticed that can affect our setup (meaning what is described in this entry) is the Web UI -> Authentication for the “Bypass authentication for clients on localhost”. This will be an issue because the reverse proxy is accessing qbittorrent via localhost, so this will make the service open to the world, experiment at your own risk.

Finally, add categories by following TRaSH: qBitTorrent how to add categories, basically right clicking on Categories -> All (x) (located at the left of the Web UI) and then on “Add category”; I use the same “Category” and “Save Path” (tv and tv, for example), where the “Save Path” will be a subdirectory of the configured global directory for torrents (TRaSH: qBitTorent paths and categories breakdown). I added 3: tv, movies and anime.

Trackers¶

Often some of the trackers that come with torrents are dead or just don’t work. You have the option to add extra trackers to torrents either by:

• Automatically add a predefined list on new torrents: configure at Tools -> Options -> BitTorrent, enable the last option “Automatically add these trackers to new downloads” then add the list of trackers. This should only be done on public torrents as private ones might ban you or something.
• Manually add a list of trackers to individual torrents: configure by selecting a torrent, clicking on Trackers on the bottom of the Web UI, right clicking on an empty space and selecting “Add trackers…” then add the list of trackers.

On both options, the list of trackers need to have at least one new line in between each new tracker. You can find trackers from the following sources:

• List of stable trackers
• ngosang/trackerslist
  • It also mentions Third party tools to automate this process.

Both sources maintain an updated list of trackers. You also might need to enable an advanced option so all the new trackers are contacted (Only first tracker contacted): configure at Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> libtorrent Section and enable both “Always announce to all tiers” and “Always announce to all trackers in a tier”.