Synology

Note

Being I don't have a Synology myself and I kind of hate the Synology GUI for the dockers, we're going to do this with the use of docker-compose through a terminal.

This is faster than the GUI and after installing, it shows up in the Docker GUI.

Thanks to faxity for the initial compose that I used to create the Synology Guide.

And a very big thanks to Bokkoman and BZwart that updated this Guide for DSM 7 and also offered their help on discord as Synology Support Team.

Introduction

This page will provide you with guidance on how to install several Docker images related to the Servarr apps to your Synology. We highly recommend reading the full guide, that way you have a better understanding of what you do, in case you later decide to make changes.

Summary

We will create one share that will hold all your data. This ensures hardlinking and/or instant moves are possible.
Create one user that will be assigned to the docker images as the user they run out of security reasons.
Create a folder structure on the data and docker share with a few commands (or manually).
Download and edit the docker-compose.yml and .env files to your system settings.
Set permissions to all folders related to the shares.
Run and execute docker commands to start the containers.

Automated Script

Automated script (Use this script at your own risk) - [Click to show/hide]

Warning

Though, we offer a short way out. This is intended as a quick way to do everything that is written on this page within one script. And is only for initial setup. After that, you need to manage it yourself. Rerunning the script can or will reset all personal changes made in the compose/env.

The script is only tested on Synology DSM7 and higher.

We are not held liable if anything breaks on your system. Use at your own risk

To get this working you will need to enable terminal access (SSH) and home folders.

Be sure to delete current running Docker containers related to this guide (ie. *arr apps, download clients), and backup settings before you do.

To enable SSH on your Synology take a look HERE.

To enable Home folders, go to Control Panel > User & Group > Advanced > Enable user home service at the bottom.

When you enable these two settings, run the following commands in your favorite terminal app and follow the onscreen questions.

curl -sL git.io/syno-script > ~/syno-script

sudo bash ~/syno-script

Install Docker

You need to install Docker / Container Manager from the Package Center. This should also create a share named docker, and check File Station if it is present.

We will create and use a new share named data (lowercase) for all your library media and downloads.

To create a new share:

Control Panel > Shared Folder > click Create > choose Create Shared Folder

Name this shared folder data. You can disable the trash can, up to you. Click next until you are done.

Create a user

We are going to create a new user that only has access to the share(s) that we use for the containers to run. You should not have the containers run as an admin/root user.

Go to Control Panel > User & Group

In the User section, create a new user. Name it whatever you like, but for this guide, we will use the name docker.

Fill out the rest of the information, generate a password or type your own.

Click next, you will now be able to select which group this user will belong to, it should only be the group users. Click Next.

Assign shared folder permissions

In the next screen, you will be able to select which Shares this user will have access to, click No Access on the top, this will deny all access.

Now only select Read/Write on the shares docker and data (the share we created earlier).

Click Next until you reach Assign application permissions

Assign application permissions

In this screen, you will be able to select which application this user will have access to. Check Deny for all applications.

Continue to click Next until you are finished.

SSH

You are mostly going to use the terminal. Some parts will need the Synology web GUI. To enable terminal access, you need to enable SSH in the Synology Settings.

Control Panel > Terminal & SNMP > Enable SSH service

Then use a program like Putty or Powershell/Terminal to SSH into your Synology.

Enter the login information of a Synology user account that has admin privileges, as only members of the 'administrators' user group can use SSH.

If you get a message asking if you want to trust the key, just press OK or ACCEPT.

PUID and PGID

For the Docker container to access the shares on Synology, we need to know the user ID (PUID) and group ID (PGID) from the docker user we just created.

Once logged in to the terminal type id docker. If you used a different username, change docker to the one you used.

This will show you the UID (aka PUID). In the screenshot above this is 1035 for the docker user and 100 is the GID (aka PGID) for the user's group. Save these values for later use.

Create Folder Structure

Let's create a good folder structure on the shares we use (docker and data). This will be done with a few commands.

The structure will look like this. You can of course edit this, but do this when you know what you are doing. We are using lowercase on all folders on purpose, being Linux is case-sensitive.

data
├── torrents
│   ├── books
│   ├── movies
│   ├── music
│   └── tv
├── usenet
│   ├── incomplete
│   └── complete
│       ├── books
│       ├── movies
│       ├── music
│       └── tv
└── media
    ├── books
    ├── movies
    ├── music
    └── tv

Bad path suggestion

The default path setup suggested by some docker developers that encourages people to use mounts like /movies, /tv, /books or /downloads is very suboptimal and it makes them look like two or three file systems, even if they aren’t (Because of how Docker’s volumes work). It is the easiest way to get started. While easy to use, it has a major drawback. Mainly losing the ability to hardlink or instant move, resulting in a slower and more I/O intensive copy + delete is used.

To create the folder structure for your media library and also for your preferred download client, run one or both of the following commands:

If you use usenet

mkdir -p /volume1/data/{usenet/{incomplete,complete}/{tv,movies,music},media/{tv,movies,music}}

If you use torrents

mkdir -p /volume1/data/{torrents/{tv,movies,music},media/{tv,movies,music}}

Appdata

Your application data will be stored in the docker share in the folder called appdata (/volume1/docker/appdata) Create these folders with the command below, or create them in File Station manually.

mkdir -p /volume1/docker/appdata/{radarr,sonarr,bazarr,plex,prowlarr,pullio}

You can add your own subfolders for your download client(s) using the command above, by adding the name to the command.

So your appdata folder will look like this.

docker
└── appdata
    ├── radarr
    ├── sonarr
    ├── bazarr
    ├── plex
    ├── prowlarr
    ├── pullio
    ├── (your download client, i.e. nzbget; sabnzbd; qbittorrent)
    └── (other applications)

Needed files

Now we are ready to move to the installation of containers.

For this, we need two files:

docker-compose.yml
.env

We will start by downloading the docker-compose.yml file

Download this docker-compose.yml to your /volume1/docker/appdata location so you can get your important stuff together. Or use the command below:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TRaSH-/Guides-Synology-Templates/main/docker-compose/docker-compose.yml -P /volume1/docker/appdata/

What's included in the compose and what is not included

This docker-compose file will have the following docker containers included.

    - Radarr
    - Sonarr
    - Bazarr (Subtitle searcher and downloader)
    - Plex
    - Prowlarr (indexer/tracker manager)

What's not included (and where are the download clients?).

We didn't add a download client to it, because it depends on what you prefer (usenet/torrent) and which client you prefer. We have a repository Repository on Github where we provide and maintain some templates that are ready to use with the main docker-compose.yml.

The only thing you need to do is copy & paste what's inside the template file into the main docker-compose.yml on the bottom, the templates also have a command that you need to use to create the appdata folder that we explained earlier. Without the appdata folder for the application, the creation of the container will fail because of the missing folder.

Second, we will download the .env file

Download this .env to your /volume1/docker/appdata location next to the docker-compose.yml. Or use this command:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TRaSH-/Guides-Synology-Templates/main/docker-compose/.env -P /volume1/docker/appdata/

Warning

MAKE SURE THE FILE KEEPS THE ORIGINAL NAME .env WITH THE DOT BEFORE IT

Changes and preparations

Tip

If you need to edit docker-compose.yml or the .env file we advise to use Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code

The .env file we downloaded holds the variables/information you need to change for everything to work. I added explanations in the .env file.

DOCKERCONFDIR (only change this if you know what you're doing and decide to use another path than this guide used)
DOCKERDATADIR (only change this if you know what you're doing and decide to use another path than this guide used)
PUID/PGID (this info you got earlier from HERE)
TZ (Change to your timezone, can be found HERE)
Install and Create a task scheduler for Pullio, so your containers stay up to date.

The .env holds more variables/information for other containers you don't need to remove those variables and will be only used when you install the other containers.

Pullio - Auto update docker-compose the correct way

Pullio allows you to automatically update your containers. And send you a notification through various means. We use a Discord Webhook.

First, you need to download Pullio

    sudo curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hotio/pullio/master/pullio.sh" -o /usr/local/bin/pullio

    sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pullio

For Pullio to do its job, you will need to create a Scheduled Task in your Task Scheduler that runs for example at 4AM with root privileges.

Control Panel > Task Scheduler > click Create > choose Scheduled task - user-defined script

Give the task a name so you know what it does. Choose user root.

In the Schedule tab choose when and how often you want it to check for updates.

At Task Settings tab, add the following line in the Run Command section:

/usr/local/bin/pullio > /volume1/docker/appdata/pullio/pullio.log 2>&1

It can be frustrating to test the script if no docker image updates are available, therefore you can run the command sudo pullio --debug` and the script will behave as if an update is available. If you have set to receive notifications, you should receive them.

More info about Pullio HERE

Permissions

Now we need to make sure that the newly created files and folders have the correct permissions.

If you have an existing library, it is advised to move these to the new data share prior to running the commands below.

Note

If you're using a different user than docker (the user-generated in the beginning), then you need to change the docker:users part in the command below!!!

sudo chown -R docker:users /volume1/data /volume1/docker

sudo chmod -R a=,a+rX,u+w,g+w /volume1/data /volume1/docker

Note

If you move files from a different library into the newly created library afterward, you need to rerun these commands. !!!

Run the Docker Compose

Tip

make sure you delete/remove all your existing dockers from the Docker GUI and also remove your native installs (in Package Center) of these applications !!! If you had previously installed apps, make a backup of their config folders or backup through the WebUI of the app.

If you have followed all the steps and your compose file is ready, run the following commands:

cd /volume1/docker/appdata

sudo docker-compose up -d

You will notice that all the images will be downloaded, and after that, the containers will be started. If you get an error then read what the error says and try to fix it (missing folders, permissions errors, etc). If you can't figure out the solution to your errors, join the guides-discord here and create a support ticket.

If you need help setting up the applications, look at the Examples of how to set up the paths inside your applications.

Warning

If you need to make any changes, only edit the docker-compose.yml file. To activate the changes, run the commands from here again.

Any changes you do/did in the GUI will be reverted when you run the docker-compose command.

Just don't use the GUI, only for information purposes !!!

Docker-Compose Commands

docker-compose commands - [Click to show/hide]

sudo docker-compose up -d (This Docker-compose command helps builds the image, then creates and starts Docker containers. The containers are from the services specified in the compose file. If the containers are already running and you run docker-compose up, it recreates the container.)
sudo docker-compose pull (Pulls an image associated with a service defined in a docker-compose.yml)
sudo docker-compose down (The Docker-compose down command also stops Docker containers like the stop command does. But it goes the extra mile. Docker-compose down, doesn’t just stop the containers, it also removes them.)
sudo docker system prune -a --volumes --force (Remove all unused containers, networks, images (both dangling and unreferenced), and optionally, volumes.)

Questions or Suggestions?

If you have questions or suggestions, click the button below to join our Discord server.

Click For Support

Additional Synology Info

DSM Task for correctly reporting IP in Plex/Nginx/Etc

Due to some iptables configuration in DSM, you can get an incorrect IP reported in Plex or other apps that need an read/report the IP. To fix this, you need to add two rules to your iptables. unfortunately, those rules can sometimes be deleted at reboot or after DSM update.

To fix this, you will need to add a Scheduled Task that executes at boot as the root user which will check if the rules exist, and, if not - re-add them.

Task bash command - [Click to show/hide]

#!/bin/bash
currentAttempt=0
totalAttempts=10
delay=15

while [ $currentAttempt -lt $totalAttempts ]; do
    currentAttempt=$(($currentAttempt + 1))

    echo "Attempt $currentAttempt of $totalAttempts..."

    result=$(iptables-save)

    if [[ $result =~ "-A DOCKER -i docker0 -j RETURN" ]]; then
        echo "Docker rules found! Modifying..."

        iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -m addrtype --dst-type LOCAL -j DOCKER
        iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -m addrtype --dst-type LOCAL ! --dst 127.0.0.0/8 -j DOCKER

        echo "Done!"

        break
    fi

    echo "Docker rules not found! Sleeping for $delay seconds..."

    sleep $delay
done

Questions or Suggestions?

If you have questions or suggestions, click the button below to join our Discord server.

Click For Support

Synology

Introduction

Summary

Automated Script

Install Docker

Create the main share

Create a user

Assign shared folder permissions

Assign application permissions

SSH

PUID and PGID

Create Folder Structure

Bad path suggestion

If you use usenet

If you use torrents

Appdata

Needed files

What's included in the compose and what is not included

Changes and preparations

Pullio - Auto update docker-compose the correct way

Permissions

Run the Docker Compose

Docker-Compose Commands

Additional Synology Info

DSM Task for correctly reporting IP in Plex/Nginx/Etc