Streamarrfs (experimental)

Streamarrfs allows you to stream movies or tv shows torrents via plex, jellyfin and etc. Powered by ⚡️webtorrent.

if you like this project.

How does it work?

1. Streamarrfs finds torrents from your favorite torrent indexer. e.g. Jackett
2. Stores info about torrents and including files in its internal database (sqlite3).
3. Mount and creates a virtual directory through fuse to simulate as if the files in the torrents are present locally.
4. Whenever a read if requested to a file, Streamarrfs starts the torrent and stream through the portion of the file requested.
5. Automatically stop torrents that has no read activity after certain period.

Features

• Monitors torrents that are not being streamed and stop them.
• Automatically paused followed to a stop of torrents if no read activity detected.
• Polls feed(s) on desired frequency.
• Ability to seek through video while streaming.
• File system can be mounted for other usage e.g. nginx as a file server.
• Handles torrent duplicates from multiple feeds.

Supported Indexes

• Jackett

Caveats

• When Plex or Jellyfin scans your media library it will cause torrents to start. Streamarrfs get around this problem by having a max number of streaming or running torrents see STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_MAX_READY. However, the limit might cause a new stream to result in an error if the max running torrents has been reached. You can get around this problem by manually stopping the torrent via the web gui at http://{HOST}:3000/ or simply wait for it to be automatically stopped due to no read activity.

Setup instructions

At the present this project only supports running as a docker image and on a x86_64 architecture. PRs are welcomed for any features and bug fixes. Given this project is at an experimental stage it is recommended to use a seperate plex server instance.

Dependencies & Prerequisites

• Fuse v2 (host).

  # On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS you may install this with the commands below.
  apt update
  apt apt install fuse libfuse2 libfuse-dev -y

• Docker & Docker compose v2 (host).

  # On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS you may install this with the commands below.
  apt update
  apt install docker.io
  # Install docker compose v2
  # See: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-22-04
  # Confirm you have docker and compose v2.x.x
  # Note make sure you have at least docker-compose 2.24
  docker info
  docker compose version

• Root access. Running the image as a user should be possible with a few tweaks.

• Hardware. Recommended minimum of 8gb RAM due to a webtorrent issue.

Common steps for Plex & Jellyfin (Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)

1. Make sure your host has the fuse at /dev/fuse.

ls /dev/fuse

2. SSH as root with command:

sudo su

4. Create a directory where Streamarrfs will mount the torrents' files.

mkdir /tmp/streamarrfs-tmp

5. Create & change to directory for the docker compose file.

mkdir /opt/streamarrfs && cd /opt/streamarrfs

6. Create the docker-compose.yml file from the examples.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/puttyman/streamarrfs/master/examples/plex/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml

7. Start the docker compose stack in the background.

docker compose up -d

8. Streamarrfs should now have the files of torrents mounted under /tmp/streamarrfs-tmp/streamarrfs-mnt/. You may now access the files directly on your host or mount it to another docker container e.g. Plex or Jellyfin. If you are unsure how to do so continue to Adding the streamarrfs files as a media libray.

Adding the streamarrfs files as a media libray

Plex

The instructions below is based on the example.

1. On a browser go to your plex instance web ui. Based example on the docker file plex should be listening on the IP of your host machine.

open http://{YOUR_HOST_IP}:32400/web

2. Follow the Official Plex Basic Setup Wizard

3. At Step 10. add the folder /streamarrfs as the media library.

4. Optional for optimal experience. In the Advanced section. Disable the following options:

   4.1 Prefer artwork based on library language

   4.2 Disable Include related external content

   4.3 Use local assets

   4.4 Enable video preview thumbnails

5. Save your media library and you may now test plex with the sample free torrents

6. To add a Jackett feed. See Adding Jackett indexers to Streamarrfs

Jellyfin (TODO)

The instructions below is based on the example.

Adding Jackett indexers to Streamarrfs

1. Create your desired Jackett indexer. The example should have an instance of Jackett running at http://{YOUR_HOST_IP}:9117. If you are unsure how to do so follow this guide.

2. Copy the RSS link of your indexer from your Jackett web portal.

3. In the docker-compose.yaml file add a new environment variable named STREAMARRFS_JACKETT_FEED_URL_ITEM_{NAME}. Replace {NAME} with any name so you can uniquely identify your indexer. The value of the variable should be the RSS link of your indexer from Jackett. You may add any extra query params to fine tune your results from Jackett. Example below.

    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=production
      - STREAMARRFS_JACKETT_FEED_URL_ITEM_YTS=http://HOST:9117/api/v2.0/indexers/yts/results/torznab/api?apikey=key&t=search&cat=&q=

4. Restart your docker stack. docker compose restart.
5. Enjoy.

Container environment variables

Note: some variables are undocumented.

Variable	Description
STREAMARRFS_JACKETT_FEED_URL_PREFIX	The prefix of the environment variable to look for jackett feed URLs. Default = STREAMARRFS_JACKETT_FEED_URL_ITEM
STREAMARRFS_JACKETT_FEED_URL_ITEM_*	The prefix for a jackett feed URL
STREAMARRFS_LOG_LEVEL	Can be a list seperated by comma for multiple log level. e.g. debug,error,fatal,log,warn,verbose . Default for production error,log
STREAMARRFS_ADD_FREE_TORRENTS	Add some free torrents on startup. Default = true
STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_PAUSE_AFTER_MS	The time to wait when no read activity is detected to pause a torrent.
STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_STOP_AFTER_MS	The time to wait when no read activity is detected to stop a torrent.
STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_MAX_READY	The maximum number of torrents allowed to be streaming at any given time. Default = 1.
STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_START_TIMEOUT	The timeout for a torrent to be in a readable state. Default = 2mins.
STREAMARRFS_TORRENT_INDEXER_CONCURRENCY	The number of concurrent torrents which can be indexed at any given time. Default = 1.
STREAMARRFS_WEBTORRENT_MAX_CONNS	The max connections per torrent. Default = 1.

Development

Linux/WSL (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) dependencies

1. Install libfuse

apt update
apt install fuse libfuse2 libfuse-dev -y

OSX

1. Install osxfuse

brew install --cask osxfuse

2. Alternatively install the .dmg from their github releases.

Getting started

1. From project root cd server && npm i
2. Init database npm run build
3. Init database npm run migration:run
4. Run dev npm run start:dev

Database changes & migrations

1. Make changes to your entities .ts files.
2. Generate a migration npm run migration:generate db/migrations/db-change.

FAQs

Is there a web GUI?

There is a simple web gui available at http://{YOUR_SERVER_IP}:3000/web. This GUI should allow you to view stats of streaming and indexing torrent.

The UI also allow you stop them in case you do not wish to wait for the automatic cleanup.

Why stream when I can download?

• Quickly finds content of your liking before needing a download.
• No storage required. (only cached during streaming).
• Skim through multiple videos to check content.

Occassional Plex errors

Errors

• Playback error.
• Content Unavailable.
• An error occurred trying to play "...". Error code: s1001 (Network)

You are likely to get this error if:

• Your connection is not fast enough.
• Your server is not fast enough.
• The torrent does not have enough peers.
• The torrent has timed-out to be in readable state.
• Plex is currently indexing the library and may cause torrents to start.
• Your server does not have enough RAM. Your allocated RAM should be more than the size of the video being streamed. See webtorrent issue
• The video your are trying to stream have multiple versions. e.g. movie.1080p.mp4 movie.2160p.mp4.

Solutions & Workarounds

• Simply retry playing the video until it works.
• Use a feed source that returns movies with 100+ Seeds. e.g. YTS
• Check CPU usage and see if your server is powerful enough.
• Plex indexing - wait for 1-2mins streamarrfs will stop the torrent after no activity.
• Lower the frequency that torrents are added from feeds.

ERROR - Please check that the file exists and the necessary drive is mounted.

Plex will not see the files from streamarrfs if it has been restarted. Plex should always be started after streamarrfs has successfully been mounted. Restarting plex should fix the issue.

See example to start plex as a docker image and depends on streamarrfs.

Troubleshooting

Common issues

• When you force remove the container, you have to sudo fusermount -uz /host/mount/point on the hostsystem!

rm: cannot remove '/tmp/streamarrfs: Device or resource busy
user@server: sudo fusermount -uz /tmp/streamarrfs
user@server: rm -rf /tmp/streamarrfs

• For running outside of docker.

npm ERR! Package fuse was not found in the pkg-config search path.
npm ERR! Perhaps you should add the directory containing `fuse.pc'
npm ERR! to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
npm ERR! No package 'fuse' found
npm ERR! Package fuse was not found in the pkg-config search path.
npm ERR! Perhaps you should add the directory containing `fuse.pc'
npm ERR! to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
npm ERR! No package 'fuse' found
npm ERR! gyp: Call to 'pkg-config --libs-only-L --libs-only-l fuse' returned exit status 1 while in binding.gyp. while trying to load binding.gyp
npm ERR! gyp ERR! configure error

You need to have libfuse-dev prior to npm install as @cocalc/fuse-native does not ship with libfuse.

sudo apt-get install -y libfuse-dev

Mounted directory is empty

Add this flag if you want to allow other users to access this fuse mountpoint. You need to add user_allow_other flag to /etc/fuse.conf file.

user_allow_other