Developer Tools Azure

Jellyfin on Ubuntu 24.04 on Azure User Guide

| Product: Jellyfin on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on Azure

Overview

Jellyfin is the free-software, self-hosted media server (GPL-2.0) - the open alternative to Plex and Emby. It organises your movies, TV, music and photos and streams them to any device through a polished web UI and native apps, with no tracking, no subscriptions and no premium tier. The cloudimg image installs a stable Jellyfin 10.x from the official Jellyfin APT repository, runs it as a systemd service bound to loopback behind an nginx reverse proxy on port 80, keeps all Jellyfin state on a dedicated Azure data disk, ships a small demo library so the UI shows content immediately, and seeds a unique administrator account on the first boot of every VM. Backed by 24/7 cloudimg support.

What is included:

  • Jellyfin (stable 10.x) installed from the official repo.jellyfin.org APT repository, running as jellyfin.service
  • nginx on :80 as a reverse proxy to the loopback Jellyfin backend (127.0.0.1:8096), with WebSocket upgrade headers
  • A per-VM administrator account (admin) seeded on first boot and recorded in a root-only file
  • A dedicated 60 GiB Azure data disk at /var/lib/jellyfin holding config, metadata, cache, transcodes and the media library
  • A ready-to-play demo movie so the library is populated out of the box
  • jellyfin.service + nginx.service as systemd units, enabled and active
  • 24/7 cloudimg support

Prerequisites

An active Azure subscription, an SSH key pair, and a VNet + subnet in the target region. Standard_B2s (2 vCPU / 4 GiB RAM) is a good starting point; step up to a size with more vCPUs if you expect concurrent transcoding. NSG inbound: allow 22/tcp from your management network and 80/tcp. Jellyfin serves plain HTTP on port 80; for production, terminate TLS in front of it with your own domain.

Step 1 - Deploy from the Azure Marketplace

Sign in to the Azure Portal, choose Create a resource, search the Marketplace for Jellyfin by cloudimg, and select Create. On Basics pick your subscription, resource group, region and size; under Administrator account choose SSH public key and paste your key; under Inbound port rules allow SSH (22) and HTTP (80). Review the dedicated data disk on the Disks tab, then Review + create -> Create.

Step 2 - Deploy from the Azure CLI

az vm create \
  --resource-group <your-rg> \
  --name jellyfin \
  --image <marketplace-image-urn> \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-values ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub \
  --vnet-name <your-vnet> --subnet <your-subnet> \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

az vm open-port --resource-group <your-rg> --name jellyfin --port 80 --priority 1010

Step 3 - Connect to your VM

ssh azureuser@<vm-public-ip>

Step 4 - Confirm the services are running

systemctl is-active jellyfin.service nginx.service

Both report active. On first boot Jellyfin runs its startup wizard automatically and seeds a per-VM administrator.

jellyfin.service and nginx.service active with the dedicated data disk mounted and both listeners bound

Step 5 - Retrieve your admin password

The admin account password is generated uniquely on the first boot of your VM and written to a root-only file:

sudo cat /root/jellyfin-credentials.txt

This file contains JELLYFIN_URL, JELLYFIN_ADMIN_USER (admin) and JELLYFIN_ADMIN_PASSWORD. Store the password somewhere safe.

Step 6 - Confirm the health endpoint

Jellyfin exposes an unauthenticated health endpoint (proxied by nginx on :80) for load balancers and probes:

curl -s http://localhost/health; echo

It returns Healthy. You can also read the public server info, which reports the installed version:

curl -s http://localhost:8096/System/Info/Public

Jellyfin health endpoint returning Healthy, the public server info reporting version 10.x, and the installed package versions

Step 7 - Sign in to the web UI

Browse to http://<vm-public-ip>/ and sign in as user admin with the password from Step 5.

Jellyfin sign-in page served by the VM on port 80

After signing in you land on the home screen. The bundled Demo Movies library appears under My Media, with the demo clip shown under Recently Added.

Jellyfin home dashboard after login showing the Demo Movies library and recently added content

Open the Demo Movies library to browse its contents. The preloaded clip confirms media playback works end to end.

The Demo Movies library grid showing the preloaded demo clip

Step 8 - Explore the administration dashboard

From the user menu choose Administration -> Dashboard. The dashboard shows the server name and version, your libraries, connected devices and a live activity log.

Jellyfin administration dashboard showing server version 10.x, the Movies library and the activity log

Step 9 - Verify authentication from the command line (optional)

Jellyfin's authentication endpoint rejects a wrong password with HTTP 401 and accepts the per-VM admin password with HTTP 200, returning an AccessToken. Using the JELLYFIN_ADMIN_PASSWORD from Step 5, the request looks like this (substitute your own password for <JELLYFIN_ADMIN_PASSWORD>):

curl -s -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: MediaBrowser Client="cloudimg", Device="cli", DeviceId="cli", Version="1.0.0"' \
  -d '{"Username":"admin","Pw":"<JELLYFIN_ADMIN_PASSWORD>"}' \
  http://localhost:8096/Users/AuthenticateByName

A correct password returns a JSON body containing "AccessToken"; a wrong password returns HTTP 401. The screenshot below shows the round-trip (wrong password rejected, per-VM password accepted) taken during the image build.

Data disk mount, demo media, credential file permissions, and the admin authentication round-trip rejecting a wrong password and accepting the per-VM password

Step 10 - Confirm data lives on the dedicated disk

All Jellyfin state - configuration, metadata, cache, transcodes and the media library - is stored on the dedicated Azure data disk so it survives OS changes and can be resized independently:

findmnt /var/lib/jellyfin

The mount is backed by a separate Azure data disk captured into the image and re-provisioned on every VM. Your media lives under /var/lib/jellyfin/media.

Adding your own media

Copy your files onto the data disk under /var/lib/jellyfin/media (for example /var/lib/jellyfin/media/movies and /var/lib/jellyfin/media/shows), following Jellyfin's movie and show naming conventions. Then in Administration -> Dashboard -> Libraries add a library (or scan an existing one) pointing at that folder. Jellyfin fetches artwork and metadata automatically and streams to the web player, mobile and TV apps.

Maintenance

  • Admin users: add or manage users from Administration -> Dashboard -> Users.
  • Libraries: manage and scan libraries from Administration -> Dashboard -> Libraries; media lives under /var/lib/jellyfin/media.
  • Data: configuration, metadata, cache, transcodes and media all live under /var/lib/jellyfin on the dedicated data disk - snapshot it to back Jellyfin up.
  • TLS: Jellyfin serves plain HTTP on port 80; front it with TLS (e.g. certbot) and your own domain before production use.
  • Upgrades: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade jellyfin pulls newer Jellyfin releases from the official repository.
  • Security patches: unattended-upgrades remains enabled so the OS continues to receive security updates automatically.

Support

cloudimg provides 24/7 expert support for this image. Contact support@cloudimg.co.uk.