The Video Disk Recorder (VDR⁠) is a free (open source), non-commercial project from Klaus Schmidinger to create a digital video recorder using standard PC components. It is possible to receive, record and playback digital TV broadcasts compatible with the DVB standard.

lapicidae/vdr-server⁠

Image based on Arch Linux, VDR4Arch⁠ and s6-overlay⁠.

Features

• regular and timely application updates
• easy user mappings (PGID, PUID)
• plugin ciplus⁠, ddci2⁠ and dvbapi⁠ support
• eMail notifications via msmtprc⁠ - a very simple and easy to use SMTP client
• built-in png channel logos⁠
• daily naludump⁠ cron
• simple http server⁠ to provide channel logos and epg images (e.g. for plugin-roboTV⁠)
• integrate your own PKGBUILD packages
• log to file with built-in log rotation
• creation of a VDR channel ID list

Note

The image is automatically rebuilt when any of the following sources receive an update:

• Arch Linux Official Docker Image - latest
• VDR4Arch⁠ GitHub repository

Getting Started

Usage

Here are some example snippets to help you get started creating a container.

docker-compose (recommended)

Compatible with docker-compose v2 schemas.

version: "2.1"
services:
  vdr-server:
    image: lapicidae/vdr-server
    container_name: vdr-server
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/London
      - PLUGINS=epgsearch live streamdev-server vnsiserver #optional
    volumes:
      - /path/to/system:/vdr/system
      - /path/to/config:/vdr/config
      - /path/to/recordings:/vdr/recordings
      - /path/to/cache:/vdr/cache
      - /path/to/channellogos:/vdr/channellogos #optional
      - /path/to/log:/vdr/log #optional
      - /path/to/timeshift:/vdr/timeshift #optional
      - /path/to/pkgbuild:/vdr/pkgbuild #optional
    ports:
      - 8008:8008
      - 6419:6419 #optional
      - 6419:6419/udp #optional
      - 34890:34890 #optional
      - 8099:8099 #optional
    devices:
      - /dev/dvb:/dev/dvb #optional
    cap_add:
      - SYS_TIME #optional: read hint!
    restart: unless-stopped
    stop_grace_period: 60s #important

docker cli

docker run -d \
  --name=vdr-server \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Europe/London \
  -e PLUGINS=epgsearch live streamdev-server vnsiserver `#optional` \
  -p 8008:8008 \
  -p 6419:6419 `#optional` \
  -p 6419:6419/udp `#optional` \
  -p 34890:34890 `#optional` \
  -p 8099:8099 `#optional`
  -v /path/to/system:/vdr/system \
  -v /path/to/config:/vdr/config \
  -v /path/to/recordings:/vdr/recordings \
  -v /path/to/cache:/vdr/cache \
  -v /path/to/channellogos:/vdr/channellogos `#optional` \
  -v /path/to/log:/vdr/log `#optional` \
  -v /path/to/timeshift:/vdr/timeshift `#optional` \
  -v /path/to/pkgbuild:/vdr/pkgbuild `#optional` \
  --device /dev/dvb:/dev/dvb `#optional` \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --cap-add=SYS_TIME `#optional: read hint!` \
  --stop-timeout 60 `#important` \
  lapicidae/vdr-server

Parameters

Container images are configured using parameters passed at runtime.
These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively.
For example, -p 8080:80 would expose port 80 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080 outside the container.

Hint

If you want to use VDRs "SetSystemTime = 1" use parameter "--cap-add=SYS_TIME"(untested)

User / Group Identifiers

When using volumes (-v flags) permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID and group PGID.

Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.

In this instance PUID=1234 and PGID=4321, to find yours use id user as below:

  $ id username
    uid=1234(dockeruser) gid=4321(dockergroup) groups=4321(dockergroup)

VDR Configuration

Directory Structure

Standard paths and their Container counterpart.

• /etc/vdr -> /vdr/system
• /var/lib/vdr -> /vdr/config
• /srv/vdr/video -> /vdr/recordings
• /var/cache/vdr -> /vdr/cache
• /usr/share/vdr/channel-logos -> /vdr/channellogos

Application Setup

Please read the VDR Wiki⁠.

Command line parameters can be changed in vdr/system/conf.d/00-vdr.conf and
configuration files are located in vdr/config/.

Webui (live plugin⁠) can be found at http://<your-ip>:8008.
Most VDR settings can be edited via the webui remote.

Plugins

First, see if there is anything to adjust in the Webui / Remote section.

Parameters are passed via the corresponding file in vdr/system/conf.d/.
Most other files related to plugins are located in vdr/config/plugins/.

eMail Notification

For example, the VDR plugin epgsearch⁠ can send a notification by e-mail (sendmail).
To provide sendmail functionality msmtp⁠ is used and the configuration is done in vdr/system/eMail.conf.
Please refer to the msmtp documentation⁠ for configuration instructions.

Bonus

Channel IDs

A list of VDR channel IDs is automatically created when the container is stopped and can be found in vdr/cache/channelids.conf.

Recording Error Check

Scan the recordings before 'VDR 2.6.0' for errors (continuity counter), e.g. to display them in the web interface.
Just put an empty file named checkrec into the main directory of your recordings (vdr/recordings).
The process is executed at container start and runs until everything is checked.
The check is done via vdr-checkts⁠ by eTobi⁠ and the basic script comes from MarkusE⁠.

Thanks

• Klaus Schmidinger (kls)⁠
• vdr-portal.de⁠
• VDR4Arch⁠
• Tobias Grimm (eTobi)⁠
• just-containers⁠
• linuxserver.io⁠
• ...and all the forgotten ones

Footnotes

1. Simple interface is avalable at http://<your-ip>:3000↩

2. When the server is running instructions available at: http://<your-ip>:8099↩

3. WARNING: The whole process has been designed to be as safe as possible! Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that the recordings will not be damaged during the cleanup. ↩