Tvheadend
Container
Tvheadend works as a proxy server: is a TV streaming server and recorder for Linux, FreeBSD and Android supporting DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C, DVB-T, ATSC, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun as input sources. Tvheadend offers the HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streaming. Multiple EPG sources are supported (over-the-air DVB and ATSC including OpenTV DVB extensions, XMLTV, PyXML).
Image details
Configuration
TypeContainerlinuxlinuxserver/tvheadend:latest9981:9981/tcp9982:9982/tcp/config : /srv/lsio/tvheadend/config/recordings : /srv/lsio/tvheadend/recordingsPUID=1000PGID=1000TZ=Etc/UTCRUN_OPTS=unless-stoppedTemplate by technorabilia
Notes
Ensure to create the following volume directories on the host file system, or modify the paths in the volume mapping section under the advanced options below, as needed.
mkdir -p /srv/lsio/tvheadend/config
mkdir -p /srv/lsio/tvheadend/recordings
Standalone Install
Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Tvheadend
Install on Portainer
Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys
- Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
- Log into your Portainer web UI
- Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
- Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
- Select Tvheadend, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy
Template Import URL
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me
More install options in our documentation.

The LinuxServer.io team brings you another container release featuring:
- regular and timely application updates
- easy user mappings (PGID, PUID)
- custom base image with s6 overlay
- weekly base OS updates with common layers across the entire LinuxServer.io ecosystem to minimise space usage, down time and bandwidth
- regular security updates
Find us at:
- Blog - all the things you can do with our containers including How-To guides, opinions and much more!
- Discord - realtime support / chat with the community and the team.
- Discourse - post on our community forum.
- GitHub - view the source for all of our repositories.
- Open Collective - please consider helping us by either donating or contributing to our budget
linuxserver/tvheadend
Tvheadend works as a proxy server: is a TV streaming server and recorder for Linux, FreeBSD and Android supporting DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C, DVB-T, ATSC, ISDB-T, IPTV, SAT>IP and HDHomeRun as input sources. Tvheadend offers the HTTP (VLC, MPlayer), HTSP (Kodi, Movian) and SAT>IP streaming. Multiple EPG sources are supported (over-the-air DVB and ATSC including OpenTV DVB extensions, XMLTV, PyXML).

Supported Architectures
We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker here and our announcement here.Simply pulling
lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latest should retrieve the correct image for your arch, but you can also pull specific arch images via tags.The architectures supported by this image are:
| Architecture | Available | Tag |
|---|---|---|
| x86-64 | ✅ | amd64-\ |
| arm64 | ✅ | arm64v8-\ |
Application Setup
The setup depends if you run the one of the stable tags or use latest. Running latest is the easiest as it has a setup wizard.Stable
First thing to do is to go to Configuration --> DVB Inputs --> TV adapters and add your LNB/switch info. Then create a new network in the Networks tab and set the correct pre-defined muxes and orbital position. Go back to the TV adapters tab and add the newly created network under universal LNB. Go back to the Networks tab and mark the network you created earlier and press the Force Scan button. Tvheadend will now scan the muxes for services.
After the scan is done, head to the Services tab and find the services you want as channels, mark them, and press map services. They should now appear under Configuration --> Channel/EPG.
Latest
The first thing to do is to run the setup wizard. If it doesn't pop up at first login, you can find it in Configuration --> General --> Base and click Start Wizard. This will guide you to set up the basic parts of tvheadend.
Configuring XMLTV grabber
To configure the XMLTV grabber, first check if your grabber is listed in Configuration --> Channel/EPG --> EPG Grabber Modules. If it's listed, you will have to configure the grabber before enabling. Find the path in the path field of your grabber. We will use the last part. It starts with tvgrab. Add it after /usr/bin/ in the below command. There should be no space between Usr/bin/ and the part you added.
docker exec -it -u abc tvheadend /usr/bin/for_you_to_fill_out --configureNow follow the on-screen progress. If you get asked about cache, just accept the default. After you have configured your grabber, you can go back and enable your grabber.
If you already have a configuration file, you can add it in the .xmltv folder where you mapped the /config volume. If it's not created, create it.
Comskip This container comes with Comskip for commercial flagging of recordings. This you have to add in the recording config of tvheadend. Go to Configuration --> Recording. Change the view level to advanced in the top right corner, and add the below in the Post-processor command field.
/usr/bin/comskip --ini=/config/comskip/comskip.ini "%f"Now comskip will run after each recording is finished. You will find comskip.ini in the comskip folder of your /config volume mapping. See the Comskip homepage for tuning of the ini file.
FFmpeg
FFmpeg is installed in /usr/bin/ in case you need to use it with pipe.
EPG XML file
If you have EPG data in XML format from a supplier, you can drop it in the data folder of your /config volume mapping. If it doesn't exist, create it. Then choose the XML file grabber in Configuration --> Channel/EPG --> EPG Grabber Modules. If you use WebGrab+Plus, choose the WebGrab+Plus XML file grabber. The XML file goes in the same path as above. The xml file has to be named guide.xml.
For advanced setup of tvheadend, go to Tvheadendappurl
Picons
We have added all the picons from picons in the folder /picons. To enable the use of these picons, add the path to the Channel icon path in Configuration --> General --> Base. You need to enable minimum advanced view level to see the picons options.
Additional runtime parameters
In some cases it might be necessary to start tvheadend with additional parameters, for example to enable debugging or specify webroot for reverse proxy. Be sure to have the right parameters set, as adding the wrong once might lead to the container not starting correctly.Usage
To help you get started creating a container from this image you can either use docker-compose or the docker cli.>!NOTE >Unless a parameter is flagged as 'optional', it is mandatory and a value must be provided.
docker-compose (recommended, click here for more info)
---
services:
tvheadend:
image: lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latest
container_name: tvheadend
environment:
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
- TZ=Etc/UTC
- RUN_OPTS= #optional
volumes:
- /path/to/tvheadend/data:/config
- /path/to/recordings:/recordings
ports:
- 9981:9981
- 9982:9982
devices:
- /dev/dri:/dev/dri #optional
- /dev/dvb:/dev/dvb #optional
restart: unless-stoppeddocker cli (click here for more info)
docker run -d \
--name=tvheadend \
-e PUID=1000 \
-e PGID=1000 \
-e TZ=Etc/UTC \
-e RUN_OPTS= `#optional` \
-p 9981:9981 \
-p 9982:9982 \
-v /path/to/tvheadend/data:/config \
-v /path/to/recordings:/recordings \
--device /dev/dri:/dev/dri `#optional` \
--device /dev/dvb:/dev/dvb `#optional` \
--restart unless-stopped \
lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latestHost vs. Bridge
If you use IPTV, SAT>IP or HDHomeRun, you need to create the container with --net=host and remove the -p flags. This is because to work with these services Tvheadend requires a multicast address of239.255.255.250 and a UDP port of 1900 which at this time is not possible with docker bridge mode.
If you have other host services which also use multicast such as SSDP/DLNA/Emby you may experience stability problems.Parameters
Containers are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). 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.| Parameter | Function |
|---|---|
-p 9981:9981 | WebUI |
-p 9982:9982 | HTSP server port. |
-e PUID=1000 | for UserID - see below for explanation |
-e PGID=1000 | for GroupID - see below for explanation |
-e TZ=Etc/UTC | specify a timezone to use, see this list. |
-e RUNOPTS= | Optionally specify additional arguments to be passed. See Additional runtime parameters. |
-v /config | Where TVHeadend show store it's config files. |
-v /recordings | Where you want the PVR to store recordings. |
--device /dev/dri | Only needed if you want to use your AMD/Intel GPU for hardware accelerated video encoding (vaapi). |
--device /dev/dvb | Only needed if you want to pass through a DVB card to the container. If you use IPTV or HDHomeRun you can leave it out. |
Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)
You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prependFILE__.As an example:
-e FILE__MYVAR=/run/secrets/mysecretvariableWill set the environment variable
MYVAR based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretvariable file.Umask for running applications
For all of our images we provide the ability to override the default umask settings for services started within the containers using the optional-e UMASK=022 setting.
Keep in mind umask is not chmod it subtracts from permissions based on it's value it does not add. Please read up here before asking for support.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=1000 and PGID=1000, to find yours use id your_user as below:id your_userExample output:
uid=1000(your_user) gid=1000(your_user) groups=1000(your_user)Docker Mods
We publish various Docker Mods to enable additional functionality within the containers. The list of Mods available for this image (if any) as well as universal mods that can be applied to any one of our images can be accessed via the dynamic badges above.
Support Info
- Shell access whilst the container is running:
```bash
docker exec -it tvheadend /bin/bash
```- To monitor the logs of the container in realtime:
```bash
docker logs -f tvheadend
```- Container version number:
```bash
docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' tvheadend
```- Image version number:
```bash
docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latest
```Updating Info
Most of our images are static, versioned, and require an image update and container recreation to update the app inside. With some exceptions (noted in the relevant readme.md), we do not recommend or support updating apps inside the container. Please consult the Application Setup section above to see if it is recommended for the image.Below are the instructions for updating containers:
Via Docker Compose
- Update images:
* All images:
```bash
docker-compose pull
```
* Single image:
```bash
docker-compose pull tvheadend
```- Update containers:
* All containers:
```bash
docker-compose up -d
```
* Single container:
```bash
docker-compose up -d tvheadend
```- You can also remove the old dangling images:
```bash
docker image prune
```Via Docker Run
- Update the image:
```bash
docker pull lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latest
```- Stop the running container:
```bash
docker stop tvheadend
```- Delete the container:
```bash
docker rm tvheadend
```- Recreate a new container with the same docker run parameters as instructed above (if mapped correctly to a host folder, your
/configfolder and settings will be preserved) - You can also remove the old dangling images:
```bash
docker image prune
```Image Update Notifications - Diun (Docker Image Update Notifier)
>!TIP >We recommend Diun for update notifications. Other tools that automatically update containers unattended are not recommended or supported.Building locally
If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:git clone https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-tvheadend.git
cd docker-tvheadend
docker build \
--no-cache \
--pull \
-t lscr.io/linuxserver/tvheadend:latest .The ARM variants can be built on x8664 hardware and vice versa using
lscr.io/linuxserver/qemu-staticdocker run --rm --privileged lscr.io/linuxserver/qemu-static --resetOnce registered you can define the dockerfile to use with
-f Dockerfile.aarch64.Versions
- 25.06.24: - Rebase to Alpine 3.20.
- 20.03.24: - Rebase to Alpine 3.19.
- 16.10.23: - Add mesa-va-gallium package for AMD transcoding.
- 20.09.23: - Add perl-json-xs package.
- 18.05.23: - Install XMLTV from Alpine repos.
- 18.05.23: - Rebase to Alpine 3.18.
- 17.03.23: - Extract picons during build instead of init.
- 23.02.23: - Rebase to Alpine 3.17, migrate to s6v3, drop armhf support.
- 31.08.22: - Update sample env vars and how RUNOPTS are handled.
- 19.08.22: - Switch to new picons builder.
- 16.04.22: - Added URL XMLTV grabber.
- 05.01.22: - Rebase to Alpine 3.15. Disable execinfo to fix builds. Update xmltv.
- 11.05.21: - Added Intel iHD driver support.
- 02.06.20: - Update to Alpine 3.12.
- 27.12.19: - Add requests and perl-json-xs package.
- 27.12.19: - Update to Alpine 3.11.
- 02.10.19: - Improve permission fixing on render & dvb devices.
- 18.08.19: - Add AMD drivers.
- 02.08.19: - Attempt to automatically fix permissions on /dev/dri and /dev/dvb.
- 28.06.19: - Rebasing to alpine 3.10.
- 27.03.19: - Rebase to Alpine 3.9, fix init logic to only chown once.
- 23.03.19: - Switching to new Base images, shift to arm32v7 tag.
- 01.03.19: - Bump xmltv to 0.6.1.
- 28.02.19: - add perl-lwp-useragent-determined.
- 17.02.19: - Bump xmltv to 5.70, ensure version tagging works by cloning tvheadend.
- 14.02.19: - Add picons path to config.
- 15.01.19: - Add pipeline logic and multi arch.
- 12.09.18: - Rebase to alpine 3.8 and use buildstage type build.
- 21.04.18: - Add JSON::XS Perl package for grab
Serve Tvheadend on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.
Proxying tvheadend.example.com to http://Tvheadend:9981
Add this to your Caddyfile
tvheadend.example.com {
reverse_proxy http://Tvheadend:9981
}Check the logs first
Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.
- In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run
docker logs Tvheadend - Exit codes help too:
137means killed, usually out of memory.126or127means the command inside the image is broken.
Port already in use
If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:9981 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.
- Find what's using it:
sudo ss -tlnp | grep :9981 - Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In
9981:9981only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.
Running but the page won't load
The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.
- Use your server's real IP:
http://your-server-ip:9981. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address. - Give it a minute after first deploy, Tvheadend can take a while to initialise.
- Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g.
sudo ufw allow 9981
Permission denied on volumes
If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.
- Fix the ownership:
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /srv/lsio/tvheadend/config(and the same for the other mapped folders) - Or set the
PUIDandPGIDvariables (defaults 1000:1000) to match your own user, found withid $USER
Image won't pull
Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull linuxserver/tvheadend:latest
- "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses
latest, so try pinning a specific version instead. - "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with
docker loginto raise it. - "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with
docker system prune
"exec format error"
This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.
- This image supports:
amd64, arm64 - Check yours with
uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.
Container keeps restarting
The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.
- Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
- Get the exit code with
docker inspect Tvheadend --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}' - Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to
noso the failure stays visible.
Required settings are blank
RUN_OPTS has no default value, and Tvheadend may crash or misbehave if left empty.
- Fill it in on the deploy screen before hitting deploy.
Raise an issue
Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.
- Bug within the app: Open an issue within Tvheadend's repo
- Template not working: Open an issue on technorabilia/portainer-templates
- This website not working: Open an issue on lissy93/portainer-templates
A single container
Tvheadend runs as one container, the simplest kind of app here. Just the one image to pull and nothing else wired up alongside it.
The app image
An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything Tvheadend needs bundled into one download. This template pulls linuxserver/tvheadend:latest, which Docker fetches once (about 284 MB) and then starts your own copy from.
Where the image comes from
Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. Tvheadend's comes from Docker Hub, published by linuxserver.
Version tags
The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. Here it's latest, which always points at the newest build, so a redeploy can bump you to a newer release without you asking. Pin a specific tag if you would rather stay on one version.
Which machines it runs on
Every image is built for particular CPU types. This one ships for amd64, arm64, so it runs on both regular x86 servers and ARM boards like a Raspberry Pi.
Ports
A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 9981:9981 means it's reachable on port 9981 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. It opens:
9981:99819982:9982
Volumes
A volume is where Tvheadend keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:
/configfrom/srv/lsio/tvheadend/configon the host/recordingsfrom/srv/lsio/tvheadend/recordingson the host
Environment variables
Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. Tvheadend takes 4 of them, and one needs a value before it'll start properly:
PUID, defaults to1000. Run 'id [USER]' for the owner of the host volume directories to get the UID to use here.PGID, defaults to1000. Run 'id [USER]' for the owner of the host volume directories to get the GID to use here.TZ, defaults toEtc/UTC. Specify a timezone to use, see this list.RUN_OPTS, needs a value. Optionally specify additional arguments to be passed. See Additional runtime parameters. [OPTIONAL]
Restart policy
The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Tvheadend after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).
Users and permissions
The PUID and PGID settings tell it which user and group to act as on your host. Point them at your own account (find yours with id $USER) so the files it writes into your mounted folders come out owned by you rather than root.
Networking
Nothing custom is set, so Tvheadend sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.
Container name
Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container Tvheadend. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs Tvheadend.
Platform
The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.
Portainer app templates
Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Tvheadend up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Tvheadend is a click rather than a wall of config.