I’m in a weird situation, i have a dedicated mini pc for my Jellyfin server Here are the requirements for solutions
- I cannot use an interface like a keyboard or mouse -I will not use linux for this particular machine -The device does have USB ports and a screen So to just have the jellyfin server start automatically, i would like to be able to hit the power button and have it boot into windows, thus automatically starting the jellyfin server and allowing me to do server restarts to fix issues.
Problem is the login screen, i can go as far as removing my password but it still requires user input to login. I need to bypass this but on the other hand i would not like to leave this giant vulnerability in my system. Is there any sort of way to get the best of both worlds? to have the PC be able to go from power button to jellyfin server started and still have some measure of security?
Thanks if anyone has any insight to my problem it would be wildly appreciated
Config Jellyfin to run as a service when you install.
As people have said, you can add Jellyfin as a service to start with windows regardless of users being logged in.
No one seems to have said how to do this.
The easiest way is to use the NSSM open source tool - it stands for “Non Sucking Service Manager” and it gives a GUI route to create services, as well as some useful reliability and fall back functions.
It can also be used from the command line if you prefer but regardless it’s probably the easiest way without faffing around with powershell or command line and in built windows tools (which do suck).
Edit. The official website is NSSM.cc and it includes guidance on how to use it. There are also plenty of guides online if you search “how to create a windows service”.
Edit2: the easiest way is to use the Jellyfin windows installer itself but the documentation is pretty vague on that and gives a warning about ffmpeg config. It should work but using NSSM will give you more direct control. I think the installer uses NSSM anyway.
Sounds like you need to set up the Jellyfin server as a windows service so it starts without logging in. I’m surprised it doesn’t do this automatically as part of the installer setup.
Alternatively you can just set up auto-login for your windows user account, but that gives you no security from local access.
Why not use an OS that supports your use case? If not Linux or BSD I bet Windows Server supports it.
Windows supports this.
I’m pretty sure I read a post years ago about how to run Jellyfin as a service (I think it’s even documented on the website).
It already runs as a headless service that you access via a browser, so you just have to configure an actual Windows Service.
I just checked - installing as a service is part of the installer, right on the Jellyfin website.
Can you set the Jellyfin server service to start with Windows? Shouldn’t need a login then. If not, you can use a PowerShell script that starts the Jellyfin .exe and use a scheduled task to run it when event id 6005 is triggered. That’s the event id created when the event log starts.
This might work, do you know how secure this is? Could i just put it in to automatically input the password on startup? i imagine that wouldn’t just “unlock” the machine for anyone trying to SSH in
Automatically entering the password at the login prompt would be FAR more insecure than task scheduler starting the task on startup. What you should do is go into task scheduler and tell it to start your jellyfin service. Then jellyfin is running, but your user isn’t even signed in.
If you just want auto login then look at these:
That’s how windows intends you to automatically log in even though your user has a password.
