Install the server

Multipass has two halves. The server is a small program that runs on the computer where your films and TV shows already live. It reads your folders, works out what everything is, and streams it to the apps, which are free and run on your TV, phone, tablet, and in any browser.

You install the server once. After that, everything else is an app you sign into.

Which machine to use

The server should live on the machine your media is already on, or one that can see it over the network. A few things matter, in this order:

• The drive. Your library lives on your disks, not ours. A big drive matters more than a fast processor.
• Always on. People will want to watch when you are asleep. A machine that sleeps means a server that is not there. Laptops work, but they are the reason people cannot watch.
• A wired connection, if you can. Wi-Fi is fine for playing, less fine for a server serving four rooms at once.
• The processor, last. Most playback does not re-encode anything, so an old desktop or a small NAS is usually enough. Re-encoding is what costs power, and it only happens when a device cannot play a file as it is.

If the machine has a modern graphics chip (Nvidia, Intel with Quick Sync, AMD, or an Apple GPU), the server will find it and use it for re-encoding automatically. You do not configure that.

Windows

Download the installer from the download page and run it.

• It installs for you only, so there is no administrator prompt and you do not need to be an administrator.
• Everything goes into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Multipass, including the media tools it needs. It does not install anything system-wide and does not touch your existing ffmpeg if you have one.
• It adds a Start Menu shortcut and, unless you untick the box, starts the server when you sign in.

When it finishes, a Multipass icon appears in your system tray. That icon owns the server: it starts it, restarts it if it ever crashes, and shuts it down cleanly when you quit. Right-click it for:

Menu item	What it does
Open Web Player	Opens the app in your browser
Stats and Admin	Goes straight to the server settings
Start / Stop	Turns the server off without uninstalling anything
Quit	Closes the tray and the server together

The first time the server listens for other devices on your network, Windows will ask whether to allow it through the firewall. Say yes for private networks. If you say no, the apps on your TV and phone will not find the server, and the fix is to allow it in Windows Defender Firewall.

Worth knowing. Uninstalling never deletes your data. Your library database, artwork, and watch history live in %APPDATA%\multipass and are left alone, so reinstalling or upgrading picks up exactly where you left off.

Linux

Packages are built for Debian and Ubuntu (.deb), Fedora and RHEL (.rpm), and a plain tarball for everything else, on both Intel and ARM machines. A Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 is a perfectly reasonable server.

sudo apt install ./multipass_x.y.z_amd64.deb     # Debian, Ubuntu
sudo dnf install ./multipass-x.y.z.x86_64.rpm    # Fedora, RHEL

The package installs a systemd service and enables it:

sudo systemctl status multipass

Where things go:

Path	Holds
/opt/multipass	The server binary and its bundled media tools
/var/lib/multipass	Your database, artwork, recordings, and settings

The service runs as a dedicated multipass user, so make sure that user can read your media folders. Removing the package stops the service and keeps /var/lib/multipass, exactly like the Windows uninstaller.

For the tarball, unpack it and run sudo sh install.sh. Pass --no-systemd if you would rather manage the process yourself.

Docker

An official multi-architecture image is nearly ready but has not shipped yet; the download page will say when it is live. Running it will look like this:

services:
  multipass:
    image: ghcr.io/kammcs/multipass:latest
    ports:
      - "29200:29200"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/var/lib/multipass
      - /path/to/your/media:/media:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

Two things to get right:

• Mount your media read-only unless you plan to record live TV or delete files from inside the app. The server never needs write access to your media just to play it.
• The paths inside the container are the paths you type into the app. If you mount /mnt/films as /media/films, the library folder is /media/films.

Docker installs do not update themselves, because the image tag is the version. When a new release exists the app tells you and points you at docker compose pull && docker compose up -d.

macOS and NAS boxes

A native macOS installer is coming. A NAS package for Synology, QNAP, and Unraid is planned, and the coming Docker image will run on all three.

Opening it for the first time

The server listens on port 29200. On the machine itself:

http://localhost:29200

From another computer on the same network, use the server machine’s name or address, for example http://living-room-pc:29200. On Windows the tray opens this for you the first time.

The first thing you will see is the setup wizard. That is the next guide.

Careful. Do not put the port on the public internet and do not forward it on your router. You never need to. Watching from outside the house works through your account, and that is covered in Connect your server to your account.