docker-roonserver

April 2026: DEPRECATION NOTICE

Roonlabs finally launched it's own Docker image to run Roon inside a Docker container. It can be found here.

I strongly suggest all users of my image to migrate to the official image from Roonlabs. There will be no more updates of my image, and I will take it offline later this year.

Migration from my image to Roonlabs image

On the github link above you can fill out a form which generates docker-compose.yaml or a shell command to start the container.

You can reuse existing host volumes for music and backups.

You can not reuse the roon-app and roon-data volumes, because they were separate in my image, but are combined in the image from Roonlabs. So please specify a brand-new docker volume for the /Roon folder in the above mentioned form.

After that, you can copy the contents of your old roon-data volume to this new volume, in the command below mentioned as roon-data-new:

sudo docker run --rm -ti -v roon-data:/data -v roon-data-new:/new alpine cp -pr /data /new/

Please doublecheck other commandline options you may have in place and the commandline options that are suggested by Roonlabs. Please also check if you were running the production release of Roon or the earlyaccess version. The official guide from Roonlabs shows how to use the correct version.

Finally, cross fingers and start the Roon container with the new settings. If all went well your phone app and other clients and players should be connected to the new Roon container. All your sources, playlists etc should still be there.

Happy listening!

Steef

Update April 21 2026

Roonlabs changed the internal path to the data folder to database. You will notice because the controllers won't connect to your Roon server anymore. To fix, stop Roon, move the existing data folder to the new location and restart Roon.

sudo docker stop roon.service
sudo docker run --rm -ti -v roon-data-new:/data alpine rm -rf /data/database
sudo docker run --rm -ti -v roon-data-new:/data alpine mv /data/data /data/database
sudo docker start roon.service

You can verify folder structure and contents as follows:

~$ sudo docker run --rm -ti -v roon-data-new:/data alpine ls -ls /data
     0 drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root            24 Apr 21 06:25 app
     0 drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root            91 Apr 21 06:25 database

~$ sudo docker run --rm -ti -v roon-data-new:/data alpine ls -las /data/database
     0 drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root            91 Apr 21 06:25 .
     0 drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root            33 Apr 21 06:25 ..
     4 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            36 Apr 21 06:25 .rmembid
     4 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            80 May 15  2025 .rmembids
     0 drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root            50 Aug  4  2021 RAATServer
     0 drwxr-xr-x    4 root     root            34 Sep 21  2023 RoonGoer
     0 drwxr-xr-x    8 root     root            94 Apr 21 06:25 RoonServer

Check the controller app if your precious music collection is back online.

Happy listening!

Steef

Old README

RoonServer downloading Roon on first run

This little project configures a docker image for running RoonServer. It downloads RoonServer if not found on an external volume.

Example start:

docker run -d \
  --net=host \
  -e TZ="Europe/Amsterdam" \
  -v roon-app:/app \
  -v roon-data:/data \
  -v roon-music:/music \
  -v roon-backups:/backup \
  steefdebruijn/docker-roonserver:latest

• You should set TZ to your timezone.
• You can change the volume mappings to local file system paths if you like.
• You must use different folders for /app and /data. The app will not start if they both point to the same folder or volume on your host.
• You should set up your library root to /music and configure backups to /backup on first run.

Systemd

If you deploy on a host with systemd, you should use a systemd service to start the Roon service.

Example systemd service (adapt to your environment):

[Unit]
Description=Roon
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service

[Service]
TimeoutStartSec=0
TimeoutStopSec=180
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker kill %n
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker rm -f %n
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/docker pull steefdebruijn/docker-roonserver
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker \
  run --name %n \
  --net=host \
  -e TZ="Europe/Amsterdam" \
  -v roon-app:/app \
  -v roon-data:/data \
  -v roon-music:/music \
  -v roon-backups:/backup \
  steefdebruijn/docker-roonserver
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker stop %n
Restart=always
RestartSec=10s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Docker-compose

If you deploy in a docker-compose environment, create a docker-compose.yaml file and run docker-compose run <service>.

Example docker-compose.yaml (adapt to your environment):

version: "3.7"
services:
  docker-roonserver:
    image: steefdebruijn/docker-roonserver:latest
    container_name: docker-roonserver
    hostname: docker-roonserver
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      TZ: "Europe/Amsterdam"
    volumes:
      - roon-app:/app
      - roon-data:/data
      - roon-music:/music
      - roon-backups:/backup
    restart: always
volumes:
  roon-app:
  roon-data:
  roon-music:
  roon-backups:

Network shares

If you find yourself in trouble using remote SMB/CIFS shares, you probably need some additional privileges on the container. You have two options here (see also issue #15):

Run the Roon container in privileged mode

# standalone or from systemd service:
docker run --privileged --name roonserver ...

# docker-compose.yaml (inside service section):
privileged: true

Run the Roon container with the right privileges. Some of these are docker-related, but depending on your host distribution and security settings you may need additional privileges.

# standalone or from systemd service:
docker run --cap-add SYS_ADMIN --cap-add DAC_READ_SEARCH --security-opt apparmor:unconfined ...

# docker-compose.yaml (inside service section):
cap_add:
  - SYS_ADMIN
  - DAC_READ_SEARCH
security_opt:
  - apparmor:unconfined

Network issues

If your docker host has multiple networks attached and your core has trouble finding audio sinks/endpoints, you can try using a specific docker network setup as described in issue #1:

docker network create -d macvlan \
   --subnet 192.168.1.0/24 --gateway 192.168.1.1 \
   --ip-range 192.168.1.240/28 -o parent=enp4s0 roon-lan
docker run --network roon-lan --name roonserver ...

Use the subnet and corresponding gateway that your audio sinks/endpoints are connected to. Use an ip-range for docker that is not conflicting with other devices on your network and outside of the DHCP range on that subnet if applicable.

Extensions

If you would like to use the Roon extensions, please deploy a separate docker container for the extension manager, for example this one. I have not tried this myself, I do not use Roon extensions.

Sound cards on host

If you want to use soundcard(s) attached to docker host, try mounting the soundcard device(s) to the roon container.

Direct or via systemd:

docker run --device /dev/snd:/dev/snd ....

or via compose:

devices:
  - "/dev/snd:/dev/snd"

See also issue #26.

Backups

Don't forget to backup the roon-backups for real (offsite preferably).

Have fun!

Steef

Version history

• 2026-04-21: Instructions to deal with path change in official Roonlabs image
• 2026-04-17: Deprecation notice and migration guide towards official Roonlabs image
• 2025-07-11: base image is still 'debian:12-slim', as it seems to be the latest available. Image is recompiled for latest debian updates.
• 2023-11-03: update base image to 'debian:12-slim', dependency to libicu72.
• 2022-04-12: update base image to 'debian:11-slim'.
• 2022-03-19: Fix download URL, follow redirects on download. Added specific usage scenarios in README.
• 2021-05-24: update base image to debian:10.9-slim and check for shared /app and /data folders.
• 2019-03-18: Fix example start (thanx @heapxor); add systemd example.
• 2019-01-23: updated base image to debian-9.6
• 2017-08-08: created initial images based on discussion on roonlabs forum.