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Afterglow Server / Linux & NAS

Your library stays on the NAS.
You pick the screen.

Run Afterglow without a desktop or a monitor. Keep your media on an always-on Linux machine and manage the library, accounts and settings from a browser on your home network.

Download headless setup kit ↓Docker / NASLinux without Docker

This is the server setup. The Linux client connects to an existing server. The kit downloads the portable server files from the latest official Afterglow application release; it does not need access to our private source repository.

01 / Docker & NAS

A server that stays with your collection.

For NAS systems with Docker / Compose support, including compatible Synology, QNAP, Unraid and TrueNAS installations.

  1. Download and extract the headless setup kit into a persistent folder on your NAS.
  2. Open compose.yaml. Replace /path/on/nas/media with your media folder. Your library is mounted read-only; the ./config folder keeps accounts, settings, artwork and progress.
  3. Copy .env.example to .env and replace the example password with your own. Keep this file private. Your owner username is owner.
  4. From that folder, start the container:
docker compose up -d --build

Open http://YOUR-NAS-IP:8765/ in a browser on your home network. Sign in as the owner to manage folders and settings. Use your NAS IP address with this configuration; automatic afterglow.local discovery is not configured.

The first build downloads the official release and builds whisper.cpp for dialogue subtitles and lyric recognition. This can take a while on smaller NAS processors.

Updating your server

docker compose build --no-cache
docker compose up -d

Keep your config folder and media mounts when updating.

02 / Direct Linux installation

No desktop required.

Requires Python 3.10 or newer and FFmpeg. On Debian or Ubuntu, install the prerequisites, then run these commands from the extracted setup-kit folder:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3 ffmpeg libchromaprint-tools
python3 setup.py --destination ./afterglow
python3 afterglow/server/afterglow_server.py --data-dir ./afterglow-data --set-password
python3 afterglow/server/afterglow_server.py --headless --library /path/to/media --data-dir ./afterglow-data

Replace /path/to/media with your library folder. The password command prompts you to configure the owner account. Then open http://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8765/ from another device on the home network.

Keep the process running, or run that same headless command through your preferred service manager. To update, run setup.py again and keep afterglow-data. Without Docker, dialogue-based subtitles and lyric recognition also require whisper-cli on your PATH.

A few things to know

Your data, your server.

  • Keep application files, persistent Afterglow data and your media in separate folders.
  • Linux speech processing uses the CPU. NVIDIA RTX Video enhancement is currently a Windows-server feature.
  • The included configuration is for home-network access. It does not configure internet port forwarding.
  • Full instructions and optional environment variables are included in the setup kit's README.
Get the setup kit ↓