MinimServer on Docker on QNAP. Won't start clean.

[JimR]

I am trying to setup MinimServer in a Docker container on my QNAP NAS. I used what knowledge I have, but could not get it to work, so asked claude.ai if it could help me figure out was going wrong. It did many tests but failed also. So I asked Claude what I should ask the forum. Here's what he said....

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I am running MinimServer in a Docker container on a QNAP NAS using the official minimworld/minimserver:2.2 image. I have no native MinimServer installation — this is a clean Docker-only setup.

The container starts, auto-updates to update 274, relaunches, and then immediately exits with this error:

MinimServer shared folder on host is not shared with this container
MinimServer: startup error

My compose.yml is:

services:
minimserver:
image: minimworld/minimserver:2.2
container_name: minim-qnap2
network_mode: host
volumes:
- /share/docker/minim-qnap2/Library:/MinimServer
- /share/audio:/Music:ro
environment:
- TZ=Europe/London
restart: unless-stopped

The original 2.2 jar appears to start successfully — the error only occurs after the relaunch under update 274. I have also tried mounting an empty folder as /MinimServer but this makes no difference.

My questions are:

What check does update 274 perform for the MinimServer shared folder, and what does it expect to find?

Is there a way to disable auto-update so the container stays on 2.2 without update 274?
What is the correct Docker setup for a clean install with no pre-existing native MinimServer folder?

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I don't have the skills to verify what he is saying. Can anyone help me? Does anyone have a compose.yml file that works for them on QNAP?

Thanks, Jim

[simoncn]

Please see points 2 and 3 in this section. You need to have a native MinimServer installation and start it once. After this, the native installation doesn't need to be running.

[JimR]

Good grief! That was quick. Thank you Simon.

Jim.

[JimR]

Hello again Simon,

First, thanks again for the super rapid response. I don't know how you do it! On a Saturday evening! MinimServer in Docker is now working.

Secondly, I am embarrassed that you had to refer me to the documentation online. Why didn't I just RTFM? Sorry. (And I am sorry I posted in the wrong forum category.)

Finally, let me offer some feedback. Part of my motivation for moving all of my QNAP server apps into containers was to increase isolation and portability and to ease backup by keeping all of my server databases in sub-folders of a single docker share. I managed this for Plex and Emby. For this reason I was reluctant to bind the container's MinimServer folder to the pre-existing native MinimServer folder. I wanted the data cleanly inside my docker folder. So I stopped the native app and user File Station to copy the contents of the native MinimServer folder to the new location mapped to MinimServer by the compose file. And what do you know? It worked! Haven't un-installed the native app yet, but expect the container will continue just fine. We'll see.

Anyway, thanks again for your excellent product and excellent support.

Jim.

[simoncn]

If you follow the instructions, the native app doesn't share any configuration information with the container. Specifically, the /MinimServer folder in the container does not contain the container's MinimServer configuration. This read-only mapping is needed for the container to access MinimServer license data that is shared between the native app and all MinimServer Docker instances, so that only one MinimServer license activation is used no matter how many MinimServer Docker instances are running.

Your custom configuration is not supported and has not been tested. It might work initially but break later. More importantly, it isn't doing what you want and expect. In order to keep a backup copy of of the container's configuration, you need to map the container's /opt/minimserver/data folder (not /MinimServer) to some location outside the container.

I strongly recommend that you revert your installation to the supported configuration described in the user guide and use the approach described in the paragraph above for backup purposes.

[JimR]

Thanks for getting back to me again.

My only concern with the supported solution is: what happens to the Docker container’s licence if the native app is uninstalled in a year’s time because I forget that even though stopped, it is still needed? Is there a supported way to make the Docker instance licence-independent?

Or am I not understanding correctly?

Anyway, thanks again for a product that has server me well for many years.

Jim.

[simoncn]

MinimServer cannot be made license independent. It must have a license, either starter, trial or full.

Uninstalling the MinimServer native app on QNAP does not delete the native app's configuration and license data. This is because there are situations where a user might want to uninstall the native app and then reinstall it.

If you remove the native MinimServer shared folder and its contents, this would delete the native app's configuration and license data. This would probably cause the MinimServer container to fail to start because the license data has been lost.

I will leave it to you to decide how you wish to proceed.