Here you will learn how to install Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04. Particularly, you will learn how to install Mono, a C# runtime that Jackett is programmed in, and download the latest Jackett release from GitHub and install it on Ubuntu 20.04. We will also add a systemd service for Jacket to autostart on boot.
Contents
Jackett & Ubuntu 20.04
Jackett converts torrent trackers to the feed format that Sonarr or Radarr can read and consume. In other words, it serves as API (Application Programming Interface) of torrent tracker websites. Here the APIs can be Sonarr, Radarr. Due to this purpose, Jackett really puts a jacket on the torrent websites.
Ubuntu 20.04, as the newest version of Ubuntu’s most common Linux distribution, is launched recently on April 2020 and has regular support until April 2025. It will hit the end of life up to April 2030, for 10 years. Compared to Ubuntu 18.04 (and also both 14.04 and 16.04), this update introduces a new Yaru theme and supports night mode, which is perfect for your inner clock. It has GNOME 3.6 which has the performance improved. Most notably, Ubuntu 20.04 comes with NVIDIA Linux driver itself, so you don’t need to take extra efforts to install it in the “Software & Updates” program in the “Additional Drivers” tab.
You may just have installed Ubuntu 20.04 and want to have Jackett installed to use it together with Sonarr, Radarr, at least for achieving your favorite TV shows or movies that you bought. This tutorial was tested on Ubuntu 20.04, but if you set up Sonarr on your Raspberry Pi, it can also refer to Debian 10 or Raspberry Pi operating system. This tutorial will certainly also work on Ubuntu-based Linux ditros, such a POP OS.
Prerequisite
You will need to have a Debian-based Linux distro installed. Ideally it should be Ubuntu 20.04 but can also be POP OS or Linux Mint.
Because we will install a systemd service, you should also have sudo/root access to your Ubuntu 20.04 computer.
Now let’s get started. It’s easy to install Jackett on Ubuntu and will just take 3 steps.
Step 1 — Install Mono, the framework Jackett is written in
Mono is an open source implementation of the C#.Net framework, originally aimed at Linux. We must install it as Jackett is written in C # and need the runtime of the Mono.
We will install mono-devel from mono’s own official Ubuntu 20.04 repository, which is also recommended by the official Jackett installation manual. However, if you prefer a bundled mono program, you can install mono-devel directly by running sudo apt install mono-devel.
Install needed packages
To install mono’s official package, we will first install gnupg and ca-certificates. gnupg is named GNUprivacy guard, which is built at GNU organization and used to protect network communication and data storage by encrypting data with digital signatures. ca-certificates includes certificate authorities who grant the digital signatures (certificate authorities), so one can verify if the data is authentically transferred through the HTTPS protocol.
sudo apt install gnupg ca-certificates
If you see similar output as follows, it suggests that the two software is installed. As you see, the two packages are already installed on my Ubuntu 20.04 machine, but it is better to run them anyway to avoid problems in later steps if we do not have them installed.
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
ca-certificates is already the newest version (20190110ubuntu1).
gnupg is already the newest version (2.2.19-3ubuntu2).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 46 not upgraded.
Add Mono’s official key
With the needed tools installed, we will now use apt-key to install the public key 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF owned by Xamarin, which is the company that develops Mono. We use the adv parameter here to pass advanced parameters to apt-key such as key server and the key string. With this Mono key installed, mono related packages that were signed by this key would be authenticated and viewed trusted.
The output will be as follows. You can see the key owner is Xamarin Public Jenkins (auto-signing) and its associated email (releng@xamarin.com). Jenkins is an automation server for software building, testing, and deployment.
Executing: /tmp/apt-key-gpghome.t1ACjSQp0Q/gpg.1.sh --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
gpg: key A6A19B38D3D831EF: public key "Xamarin Public Jenkins (auto-signing) releng@xamarin.com" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: imported: 1
Add mono’s Ubuntu 20.04 repository
Now we will add Mono project’s official Ubuntu 20.04 repository (APT data source) to the mono-official-stable.list file in the directory /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. If you see the output deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main, the repo is successfully enabled.
echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list
Now we run sudo apt update to get all of the package meta information from Mono’s repo. Technically, we are resynchronizing the index files for the packages. You will see the output in the screenshot below. Note that you will receive a warning about the repo that doesn’t support i386 architecture, safely ignore it as the chases are you are running on a 64-bit machine.
Skipping acquire of configured file ‘main/binary-i386/Packages’ as repository ‘https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal InRelease’ doesn’t support architecture ‘i386’
Now we will finally install the Mono package, more precisely the mono-devel package. As its name suggests, this package contains development tools and pulls in the development stack for Mono. The following screenshot shows the output. Press enter or type Y and press enter to continue. After mono installation, it will take 382 MB of disk space. The installation will be slow as it will compile on your machine.
sudo apt install mono-devel
Very good. Now you have mono installed on your Ubuntu 20.04 computer, the most important dependency of Jackett installation.
To verify that, let’s test the version of Mono. You can see similar output like the screenshot blow. In my case the version 6.8.0.123 of the Mono JIT compiler is installed. JIT means just-in-time, meaning it will compile on fly.
Similar to Radarr, but unlike Sonarr, Jackett does not come with its own Ubuntu or Debian repository for you to install on your Ubuntu 20.04 computer, so we have to download the latest release form Jackett’s official GitHub repo. GitHub is the social network for developers and is super popular, Jackett developer also put the code on GitHub.
First, to download the latest release archive in .tar.gz format, which is very close to the common zip format, we will run the following command, curl, to extract information from GitHub’s release API. (If you see “Command ‘curl’ not found, did you mean”, simply install it by sudo apt install curl.)
You will see output like this. The size of the Jackett is quite large, around 42 MB (The release of Radarr is only 12.6 MB). To double check we downloaded the file, run ls Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz or ls Jackett*. Here we downloaded the Linux version of Jackett and the 64-bit architecture. In case you are wondering if it should be UbuntuAMDx64.tat.gz, we are fine because Ubuntu is based on Debian which belongs to the Linux OS family.
ls Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz
Uncompress Jackett release file
Once the latest release of Jackett is downloaded, let’s now uncompress it, which is likely to locate in your home directory. Run the following with the tar command to uncompress the release file we just downloaded:
tar -xvzf Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz
One interesting thing we can easily spot is that all the torrent provider information are in Jackett/Definitions/, so if you really want, you can add some unsupported torrent provider in this folder.
Step 3 — Start Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04
To test whether Jackett is installed on your Ubuntu 20.04 machine, let’s start it.
First, we cd to the directory we just uncompressed. We will remain in this directory as we will create a systemd service for Jackket to auto start on boot.
cd Jackett
Then simply run ./jackett. It looks like the Jackett developers already packed built files in the release archive.
./jackett
The screenshot below shows the commands we run to start Jackett:
I copy & pasted the full output here for your reference (A screenshot follows and shows the last part of the output).
The default Jackett port is 9117, which is why you see “Now listening on: http://[::]:9117”. So, we can start it by opening this URL in your browser: http://localhost:9117/, which will automatically direct you to http://localhost:9117/UI/Dashboard. Now right-click any of the url will bring you to Jackett web interface.
Autostart Jackett with systemd
If you restart your computer or experience a power outage until the last step, you’ll need to restart Jackett to use it again. We’ll use Systemd software here to auto-start Jackett on boot for you. What we are going to use next is systemd service.
Install Jackett systemd service
Fortunately, the Jackett developers already provided a shell script to create and install the systemd service. Because systemd is a OS level software, we will run it with sudo. Also note that before running the following command, use the keyboard shortcut ctrl - c to stop Jackett from your current terminal window.
To install the systemd service, run
sudo ./install_service_systemd.sh
You will see the output like the following. Jackett developers did a greate job, you don’t even need to change the username if you install and enable
vh@varhowto-com:~/Jackett$ sudo ./install_service_systemd.sh
Checking if the service 'jackett.service' is running …
Service 'jackett.service' is not running
Jackett will be installed in '/home/vh/Jackett'
Jackett will be executed with the user 'vh'
Creating Jackett unit file in '/etc/systemd/system/jackett.service' …
Installing Jackett service …
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/jackett.service → /etc/systemd/system/jackett.service.
Service successfully installed and launched!
vh@varhowto-com:~/Jackett$
Here is the full systemd service it generated for me. You can see yours by opening this file: /etc/systemd/system/jackett.service. If the group is not the same as your username, you might want to change it.
To verify the Jackett is successfully started by the systemd service, run sudo systemctl status jackett.service. You will see the output similar to the following screenshot.
As you can see, Jackett has process PID 10877 and takes a lot of memory: 119 MB memory (Radarr is 57.5 MB, Sonarr is 108.1 MB). It is listening to http://*:9117/ (yes, you can open http://localhost:7878/ or replace localhost with your IP address). It is more clear in the text output below the screenshot: the torrent tracker definations are loaded from 3 places:
/home/vh/.config/cardigann/definitions/
/etc/xdg/cardigan/definitions/
/home/vh/Jackett/Definitions
● jackett.service - Jackett Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/jackett.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2020-07-18 18:45:33 EDT; 15s ago
Main PID: 10877 (sh)
Tasks: 15 (limit: 2247)
Memory: 119.0M
CGroup: /system.slice/jackett.service
├─10877 /bin/sh /home/vh/Jackett/jackett_launcher.sh
└─10895 /home/vh/Jackett/jackett --NoRestart
Jul 18 18:45:34 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:34 Info Using Proxy: No
Jul 18 18:45:34 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:34 Info Using HTTP Client: HttpWebClient2NetCore
Jul 18 18:45:34 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:34 Info Loading Cardigann definitions from: /home/vh/.config/cardigann/definitions/, /etc/xdg/cardigan/definitions/, /home/vh/Jackett/Definitions
Jul 18 18:45:35 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:35 Info Cardigann definitions loaded: abnormal, alpharatio, anidex, anidub, animebytes, animetorrents, anthelion, avistaz, awesomehd, bakabt, bb, bitcityreloaded, bithdtv, bjshare, broadcasthen>
Jul 18 18:45:35 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:35 Info Adding aggregate indexer
Jul 18 18:45:36 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: 07-18 18:45:36 Info Jackett startup finished in 2.847 s
Jul 18 18:45:36 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: Hosting environment: Production
Jul 18 18:45:36 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: Content root path: /home/vh/Jackett/Content
Jul 18 18:45:36 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: Now listening on: http://[::]:9117
Jul 18 18:45:36 varhowto-com jackett[10895]: Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.
Stop/restart jackett systemd service
systemd allows us to autostart a service, you can also use the following commands to stop or restart a service any time, particularly if there is a problem.
To stop the jackett systemd service, run sudo systemctl stop jackett.service. To restart it, run sudo systemctl restart jackett.service.
How to uninstall Jackett
To remove Jackett, first we disable the Jackett service:
sudo systemctl disable jackett.service
Then we remove the jackett.service file that the install_service_systemd.sh shell script installed:
sudo remove /etc/systemd/system/jackett.service
Finally, we remove the Jackett folder we downloaded.
Congratulations, you have learned how to install Jackett and make it auto-start by adding the Jackett systemd service on your Ubuntu 20.04 computer! Now you can try to add index in the web interface and use “Copy Torznab Feed” to add the torrent trackers in your Radarr or Sonarr. Then you can download some movies or TV shows you have probably bought from BestBuy, Walmart, or Target.
3 Steps to Install Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04
Time Needed :10 minutes
Install Mono for Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04
Run sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF and echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list and sudo apt update && sudo apt install mono-devel
To verify mono is installed, run mono --version
Install latest Jackett release on Ubuntu 20.04
To download, run curl -L -O $( curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | grep Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz | grep browser_download_url | head -1 | cut -d \" -f 4 )
To uncompress, run tar -xvzf Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz.
Install Jackett systemd service for autorestart
To install, run cd ~/Jackett/ && sudo ./install_service_systemd.sh
18 replies on “How to Install Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04”
Oh boy. You go to great lengths to describe how one should install mono-devel (from official repository) and then direct users to download the linux standalone version of the Jackett binaries. (mono not required).
This guide should be three lines:
1)download jackett binaries from github
2)un-tar
3)./jacket
If you insist on installing the mono runtimes, then download the much smaller mono-build of Jackett. That said, why??
Suggestion to simplify hitting the API for the download URL: curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | jq .[0]."assets"[0]."browser_download_url"
+1
synology torrent search not working
+1
Nos autorizas a comentarlo en mi blog. Muchas gracias Saludos
+1
Hi,
Thanks for this detailed guide to get install Jackett as a service on debian variants. I am on Mint 20.1
I got stuck at curl with the command in the image but noticed that the image and the text snapshot of the commands were different – text version worked. So, now I have a Jackett working fine as a service and after adding some public indexes, the manual searches are working fine on the localhost:9117.
However, even after following the instructions for getting Jackett to work in qBittorrent, I am unable to get it to appear as a plugin in the qBittorrent. I followed the instruction at https://github.com/qbittorrent/search-plugins/wiki/How-to-configure-Jackett-plugin, following the “Linux Mint 20” section specifically for the json file (with my API key from my own localhost:9117).
Any suggestion, what I am missing?
Thanks
+1
Any way to autostart on WSL2?
+2
Doesnt work
bash: command substitution: line 8: syntax error near unexpected token ('
bash: command substitution: line 8: curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | perl -pe s/^.+?browser_download_url.+?(https.+?Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz).+/$1/; )’
These guides are comprehensive, clear, and straight to the point. I like how everything is explained so you actually know what each step is accomplishing, yet not over bloated with too much information. Perfect for accomplishing the task at hand and getting a better understanding of Linux along the way.
+3
Might I add, excellent formatting, easy to look at and follow!
+2
These guides are fantastic. thank you for putting them together.
18 replies on “How to Install Jackett on Ubuntu 20.04”
Oh boy. You go to great lengths to describe how one should install mono-devel (from official repository) and then direct users to download the linux standalone version of the Jackett binaries. (mono not required).
This guide should be three lines:
1)download jackett binaries from github
2)un-tar
3)./jacket
If you insist on installing the mono runtimes, then download the much smaller mono-build of Jackett. That said, why??
Suggestion:
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | jq .[0]."assets"[0]."browser_download_url"
Suggestion to simplify hitting the API for the download URL:
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | jq .[0]."assets"[0]."browser_download_url"
synology torrent search not working
Nos autorizas a comentarlo en mi blog. Muchas gracias Saludos
Hi,
Thanks for this detailed guide to get install Jackett as a service on debian variants. I am on Mint 20.1
I got stuck at curl with the command in the image but noticed that the image and the text snapshot of the commands were different – text version worked. So, now I have a Jackett working fine as a service and after adding some public indexes, the manual searches are working fine on the localhost:9117.
However, even after following the instructions for getting Jackett to work in qBittorrent, I am unable to get it to appear as a plugin in the qBittorrent. I followed the instruction at https://github.com/qbittorrent/search-plugins/wiki/How-to-configure-Jackett-plugin, following the “Linux Mint 20” section specifically for the json file (with my API key from my own localhost:9117).
Any suggestion, what I am missing?
Thanks
Any way to autostart on WSL2?
Doesnt work
bash: command substitution: line 8: syntax error near unexpected token
('
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | perl -pe s/^.+?browser_download_url.+?(https.+?Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz).+/$1/; )’bash: command substitution: line 8:
i fixed the complicated curl command with
wget https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett/releases/download/v0.17.213/Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz
(note https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett/releases copy paste the current release URL from here)
sudo chown USERNAME:USERNAME -R “/home/USERNAME/Jackett”
also it lacks this
The Jackett releases file doesn’t contain newlines, so parsing it is a little messy. This curl command will download the latest Jackett release.
curl -L -O $( curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | perl -pe 's/^.+?browser_download_url.+?(https.+?Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz).+/$1/;' )
Thanks! I just update the post.
curl: option ->: is unknown
The curl commands to download jacket aren’t working fyi
curl -L -O $( curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Jackett/Jackett/releases | perl -pe ‘s/^.+?browser_download_url.+?(https.+?Jackett.Binaries.LinuxAMDx64.tar.gz).+/$1/;’ )
These guides are comprehensive, clear, and straight to the point. I like how everything is explained so you actually know what each step is accomplishing, yet not over bloated with too much information. Perfect for accomplishing the task at hand and getting a better understanding of Linux along the way.
Might I add, excellent formatting, easy to look at and follow!
These guides are fantastic. thank you for putting them together.
Thanks! I am glad you liked it.