meant to automate grabbing content from torrents or usenet, sending them to your torrent client, and also moving or linking the dowbloaded files
the available settings, filter for formats, etc. are pretty complex and the usecase is broad
So there’s the “official” set of tools from servarr.com, but there’s a few “unofficial” tools as well, but they all function similarly in that they glue several things together to make workflows nicer.
- A downloader (either a Bittorrent client or Usenet, but I will focus on Bittorrent).
- An Indexer, some remote site (like thepiratebay.org) or BitMagnet (local DHT scraper) for searching for torrents. Prowlarr is the generic indexer component, so it can provide Indexer’s to other components (Sonarr, Radarr, etc.), but you don’t need to use Prowlarr if the site
- A downloads folder.
- A media library folder.
After adding your media library so the component knows what you “have” already, you tell the component (say “Sonarr” for TV shows) what you “want” and it’s added to a wanted list. It also knows what you already have. When you add a new show to your wanted list it can immediately download it, or it can wait for new episodes to be released and only download those. When downloading it will download to the downloads folder and then copy (you can change settings so it uses hard links, so these copies don’t take up extra space). It will only copy the media files and ignore .nfo/readme.txt style files, and it will change the format to the one Plex/JellyFin want (with <show>/<season X>/S__E__ - Episode title.mkv) By default it will seed for a certain amount and then delete the files from the downloads folder/remove from the torrent client, but this is configurable. It can also look for higher quality versions like if you have 480p versions of a show and 1080p versions become available it can download them and replace the lower quality versions with higher quality (it does not do this by default).
But that’s fundamentally how they work, they have a media library with certain things, and a list of things you “want” and then a way to download things to get from the want list into the media library without needing to do any manual intervention (except manually adding things to your wanted list)
Follow-up question: Can someone explain it in a goofy pirate accent?
Arr, ye be wantin’ the secrets o’ the Servarr fleet, eh? Then lend me yer ears:
Sonarr – This be the lookout in the crow’s nest, keepin’ watch fer new episodes o’ yer favorite shows. When it spies ‘em, it signals the crew to fetch ‘em down from the digital seas.
Radarr – Aye, this one’s the treasure hunter, scourin’ the oceans fer full-length films instead o’ episodes. It marks the map, finds the booty, an’ brings the shiny reels aboard.
Lidarr – The ship’s bard, huntin’ down new shanties an’ albums to keep the crew’s spirits high on long voyages.
Readarr – A learned scribe, fetchin’ tomes an’ scrolls fer them what likes a quiet night with words instead o’ waves.
Bazarr – The translator, givin’ ye subtitles fer shows an’ films in whatever tongue ye fancy, so no sailor be left in the dark.
Prowlarr – The scout, integratin’ all yer trackers an’ indexers into one mighty spyglass, so the rest o’ the crew can search the seas more smartly.
All together, they be runnin’ like a well-oiled pirate crew, each wit’ a role in findin’, organizin’, and keepin’ yer plundered media shipshape.
Arr-ight.
Thank you for your service.
Avast all ye who be lookin fer fancy words, readarr has been sent to Davy Jones’s locker.
I love this and you are a hero, bur your language could be both kore nautical and more piratey.
It can be overwhelming or straight up not worth it for people, but I didn’t mind the setup (setting up my VPN on my ubuntu server with port forwarding was more of a headache for me) and it makes it way easier for my wife to make requests with jellyseer, also for automatically getting requested new releases or new episodes of shows
they are tools for automating the grabbing, downloading, and organizing of media such as movies, tv, and music.
I have a high tolerance for technical stuff, but quite honestly I am overwhelmed by the *arr tools. I have never been able to understand exactly what they each do, how to make them work together, and what the prerequisites are, e.g. a Usenet account.
They’re just media library organizers that can download media for you using torrents or Usenet. There’s a different one for each type of media:
- Radar - Movies
- Sonarr - TV
- Lidarr - Music
- Readarr - eBooks
- Whisparr - Porn
There’s also prowlarr, which you can use to set up a list of indexers (torrent/Usenet sites) that the other *arr servers can use, so you don’t have to configure each server’s indexer list individually. You can also use it as an aggregated indexer search for other things that arent managed by the rest of the suite (like software).
There’s also bazarr which you can use to automatically download subtitles for your TV/movie library.
And there’s flaresolvarr which can be used by prowlarr to bypass captchas for indexers that use them.
It’s all pretty easy to set up, especially if you’re using docker containers, although there is a community install script that’ll do everything for you if you want them installed directly on Linux.
You do need a separate download client set up, like qbittorrent for torrents and sabnzbd for Usenet.
have you already given trash guides a read? it helped me be able to conceptually put the pieces together a little better. it still took actually setting them up and using them for a bit to really understand certain aspects of them, or see ‘why’ certain things are how they are when I’d previously had no clue for some settings.
They don’t need necessarily need a Usenet account, They can work perfectly well with ordinary torrents.
They work just fine as media organizers with no downloader at all!
I setup a tdarr server/node today, it automatically sets up videos to be transcoded. I’m using it so my mini pc hosting jellyfin doesn’t have to. This means the videos should direct play, saving significant resources on the mini pc. That should allow me a handful of streams at the same time if it happens.
I put the node on my main desktop pc with a GPU, so when my server sees new videos land in my jellyfin folder it should have the windows pc grab the video, transcode it over on it’s own ssd, then replace the original video on the server.
A collection of programs that will track your media directory and automatically start a torrent on a missing piece of media with a web interface that you can use to browse what you do and do not have.
- lidarr – music manager
- radarr – movie manager
- sonarr – tv shows manager
- prowlarr – torrent index manager (ie tell sonarr to check thepiratebay.
So you basically start these programs, connect them with prowlarr so that they can find torrents, point them to a media directory, and then connect that back to a torrent client such as Qbittorrent. When a new TV show comes out, they will automatically download that into your downloads directory and hardlink it to your media directory, torrent keeps seeding, it’s filed away properly and no extra storage use until the hardlink breaks. So if you also have Jellyfin / navidrome pointing at your media directory, you will just see new media pop up each week.
I recommend using qbitorrent in a docker container that enforces a vpn, then you can just drop a WireGuard profile in there. AirVPN Works well for this as it supports port forwarding as well.
I personally manage the entire thing in a single docker compose file, and that’s what I would recommend, because then it’s set and forget.
There’s also bazarr for subtitles.
A lot of unnecessary work.
I kinda agree. IIRC, they were originally built for downloading from newsgroups, which does need a lot of automation. Personally, I do find Sonarr useful, so I don’t have to manually keep track of when new episodes come out. Before Sonarr, I used to use a tool that was configured with YAML or something, forgot what it was. I do run an *arr stack now because I have a multi-member household, and they don’t want to go searching for stuff on trackers, so they just use Overseerr.
hehe they’re clearly products of their times/ecosystems. I dont judge people for using them. I just shake my head at what people are willing to tolerate when there are far easier mechanisms to find and download. I havent had to go outside of a single tracker atm for my uses so that might be part of it.
You could say this about a lot of automation tools. A properly-functioning *arr stack is nothing more than an automation tool. Punch a movie/tv show into Overseerr, the *arrs work in the background with your downloader client (torrent or Usenet), and some time later - depending on your internet bandwidth - it appears in Plex/Jellyfin.
The convenience of the end result is worth the work.
No its just not that convenient for the LOE. You know what just requires punching in the title you want? Most peovate tracker uis. Click download and the client picks up the torrent file.
Fuck even retrovibed has an rss feed and you can just click bookmark in a trackers ui and it’ll download in the background.
I took one look at the arr stack and nope right the fuck out.
You should check out Netflix :p
sorry bud but those tools just are not that useful. you’re free to disagree of course but there are better torrenting automation tools out there. im of course biased but shrug
