Building a DLNA Media Server in Seconds [MiniDLNA]

Hello, it's Munou.

I'm using Nextcloud for my file server, but I wanted to easily play videos and music from VLC Player without going through a browser, so I tried setting this up.

First, install minidlna.

sudo apt install minidlna

Edit the configuration file.

sudo vi /etc/minidlna.conf

Search for the media_dir entry and add the following.

#media_dir=/var/lib/minidlna
media_dir=A,/media/ncp/yt/m/output
media_dir=V,/media/ncp/yt/n

A seems to be for audio and V for video.

MiniDLNA uses 8200/tcp, so open the port.

sudo ufw allow 820/tcp

Restart the firewall and MiniDLNA.

sudo service minidlna restart

sudo service ufw restart

That's it.

I was able to easily access it from within the local network. Since there's no password authentication, be careful about the content, as it will be shared on the local network. If you have music files or media that everyone in the house uses, it's not possible to edit the content, so compared to Samba, there's less risk of it being tampered with, making it extremely easy to use.

Also, MiniDLNA doesn't use a DB compared to NextCloud, etc., so it doesn't require high machine specs.
I think it's a good option if you want to easily share files locally, even on a small home server.

Well then.

See you next time.