Getting started

Access via: http://localhost:36400 (user = admin, password = admin)

To ensure the data is saved across builds, link an empty volume to: /var/www/config within the container. This is where the env file will be stored, along with the sqlite database and the application log files.

Note about websocket

NOTE: You will need to set the REVERB_HOST variable to the machine IP where m3u editor is runing for websockets to work correctly (if not running on localhost).

Versions

We inlcude both linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 builds in our build process, starting at version v0.4.5. We also push regular updates and new beta features to the experimental and dev branches.

• 💪 Use the latest stable release: sparkison/m3u-editor:latest
• #️⃣ Use a specific version: sparkison/m3u-editor:0.6.4, sparkison/m3u-editor:0.6.8, etc.
• 🔥 Use the dev branch: sparkison/m3u-editor:dev
  • stable’ish branch – we try to keep this one clean and fix bugs as quickly as possible
• 🧪 Use the experimental branch: sparkison/m3u-editor:experimental
  • new and fun features that can break things; features will be announced on our Discord under the #releases channel

Table of contents

• Docker compose (simplest)
• Docker with internal Postgres (recommended) ^(v0.6.0+)
• Docker with your Postgres (advanced) ^(v0.6.0+)

• 📕 Tips & Notes

🐳 Docker compose

Use the following compose example to get up and running.

services:
  m3u-editor:
    image: sparkison/m3u-editor:latest
    container_name: m3u-editor
    environment:
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - APP_URL=http://localhost # or http://192.168.0.123 or https://your-custom-tld.com
      # This is used for websockets and in-app notifications
      # Set to your machine/container IP where m3u editor will be accessed, if not localhost
      - REVERB_HOST=localhost # or 192.168.0.123 or your-custom-tld.com
      - REVERB_SCHEME=http # or https if using custom TLD with https
    volumes:
      # This will allow you to reuse the data across container recreates
      # Format is: <host_directory_path>:<container_path>
      # More information: https://docs.docker.com/reference/compose-file/volumes/
      - ./data:/var/www/config
      # Optionally, for optimal performance using HLS proxy, link a Ram Disk to the HLS file location used for transoding
      # - /mnt/RamDisk:/var/www/html/storage/app/hls
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 36400:36400 # app
      - 36800:36800 # websockets/broadcasting
networks: {}

Or via Docker CLI:

 docker run --name m3u-editor -e TZ=Etc/UTC -e APP_URL=http://localhost -e REVERB_HOST=localhost -e REVERB_SCHEME=http -v ./data:/var/www/config --restart unless-stopped -p 36400:36400 -p 36800:36800 sparkison/m3u-editor:latest 

---

🐳 Docker compose with 🐘 SQL (PostgreSQL)

New (v0.6.0)

By default m3u editor uses SQLite as the database driver.

If you’d like something more resilient, you can switch to the pgsql driver instead and utilize the internal PostgreSQL instance for your database storage. m3u editor supports this out of the box!

Update your docker-compose.yaml file like this to use SQL/PostgreSQL:

services:
  m3u-editor:
    image: sparkison/m3u-editor:latest
    container_name: m3u-editor
    environment:
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - APP_URL=http://localhost # or http://192.168.0.123 or https://your-custom-tld.com
      # This is used for websockets and in-app notifications
      # Set to your machine/container IP where m3u editor will be accessed, if not localhost
      - REVERB_HOST=localhost # or 192.168.0.123 or your-custom-tld.com
      - REVERB_SCHEME=http # or https if using custom TLD with https
      - ENABLE_POSTGRES=true               # <----- start here
      - PG_DATABASE=${PG_DATABASE:-m3ue}   # <----- DB name
      - PG_USER=${PG_USER:-m3ue}           # <----- DB user
      - PG_PASSWORD=${PG_PASSWORD:-secret} # <----- DB password
      - PG_PORT=${PG_PORT:-5432}           # <----- DB port (optional, defaults to 5432)
      - DB_CONNECTION=pgsql                # <----- set to `pgsql` (default is `sqlite`)
      - DB_HOST=localhost                  # <----- make sure set to `localhost`
      - DB_PORT=${PG_PORT:-5432}           # <----- using default Postgres port
      - DB_DATABASE=${PG_DATABASE:-m3ue}   # <----- should match `PG_DATABASE`
      - DB_USERNAME=${PG_USER:-m3ue}       # <----- should match `PG_USER`
      - DB_PASSWORD=${PG_PASSWORD:-secret} # <----- should match `PG_PASSWORD`
    volumes:
      # This will allow you to reuse the data across container recreates
      # Format is: <host_directory_path>:<container_path>
      # More information: https://docs.docker.com/reference/compose-file/volumes/
      - ./data:/var/www/config
      # Optionally, for optimal performance using HLS proxy, link a Ram Disk to the HLS file location used for transoding
      # - /mnt/RamDisk:/var/www/html/storage/app/hls
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data # <----- link volume `pgsql` data to retain data
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 36400:36400 # app
      - 36800:36800 # websockets/broadcasting
      # - 5432:5432 # <----- (optionally) expose the pgqsl instance
networks: {}
volumes:
  pgdata:           # <----- created named volume for Postgres store

then make sure to add .env variables in the root of project (where your docker-compose.yaml lives) if you want to override the default values, e.g.:

PG_DATABASE=database_name
PG_USER=database_user
PG_PASSWORD=a_password
PG_PORT=65432

---

🔧 If you’d like to use your own PostgreSQL instance

New (v0.6.0)

Just update the DB_ variables and exclude the PG_ variables.

services:
  m3u-editor:
    image: sparkison/m3u-editor:latest
    container_name: m3u-editor
    environment:
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - APP_URL=http://localhost # or http://192.168.0.123 or https://your-custom-tld.com
      # This is used for websockets and in-app notifications
      # Set to your machine/container IP where m3u editor will be accessed, if not localhost
      - REVERB_HOST=localhost # or 192.168.0.123 or your-custom-tld.com
      - REVERB_SCHEME=http # or https if using custom TLD with https
      # - ENABLE_POSTGRES=false     # <----- disable, or exclude variable, either works
      - DB_CONNECTION=pgsql         # <----- set to `pgsql` (default is `sqlite`)
      - DB_HOST=hostname            # <----- your Postgres instance hostname (localhost, 192.168.0.456, etc.)
      - DB_PORT=5432                # <----- your Postgres instance port
      - DB_DATABASE=database        # <----- your Postgres database name
      - DB_USERNAME=user            # <----- user for your Postgres database
      - DB_PASSWORD=password        # <----- password for your Postgres database
    volumes:
      # This will allow you to reuse the data across container recreates
      # Format is: <host_directory_path>:<container_path>
      # More information: https://docs.docker.com/reference/compose-file/volumes/
      - ./data:/var/www/config
      # Optionally, for optimal performance using HLS proxy, link a Ram Disk to the HLS file location used for transoding
      # - /mnt/RamDisk:/var/www/html/storage/app/hls
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 36400:36400 # app
      - 36800:36800 # websockets/broadcasting
networks: {}

---

📕 Tips & Notes

🩺 Health check options

m3u editor has a built-in health check you can use when needed.

as an example, you can add this to your m3u-editor docker compose to utilize it:

services:
  m3u-editor:
      healthcheck:
        test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:36400/up"] # Make sure to update the port if you've changed it, url can remain localhost as it's an internally run command
        interval: 10s
        timeout: 10s
        retries: 10
        start_period: 60s

A more complete example would look something like this:

services:
  m3u-editor:
    image: sparkison/m3u-editor:latest
    container_name: m3u-editor
    environment:
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - APP_URL=http://192.168.0.123
      - REVERB_HOST=192.168.0.123
      - REVERB_SCHEME=http
      - ENABLE_POSTGRES=true
      - DB_CONNECTION=pgsql
      - DB_HOST=localhost
      - PG_PORT=5432
      - DB_PORT=5432
      - PG_DATABASE=m3ue
      - DB_DATABASE=m3ue
      - PG_USER=m3ue
      - DB_USERNAME=m3ue
      - PG_PASSWORD=secret
      - DB_PASSWORD=secret
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/www/config
      # - /mnt/RamDisk:/var/www/html/storage/app/hls
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 36400:36400
      - 36800:36800
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:36400/up"] # Make sure to update the port if you've changed it, url can remain localhost as it's an internally run command
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 10
      start_period: 60s

  jellyfin:
    image: jellyfin/jellyfin:latest
    container_name: jellyfin
    depends_on:
      m3u-editor:
        condition: service_healthy
    ports:
      - 8096:8096
    volumes:
      - ./jellyfin/config:/config
      - ./jellyfin/cache:/cache
      - ./jellyfin/media:/media
    restart: unless-stopped

networks: {}
volumes:
  pgdata:

---

Proxy storage behavior

• TS proxy streaming uses Redis (in-memory only) to buffer transport stream data. This means no disk writes are involved for TS playback, keeping things fast and ephemeral.
• HLS proxy streaming writes .ts segment files to disk (default path: /var/www/html/storage/app/hls inside the container). This ensures segments are available for clients during the HLS playlist cycle.

---

⚡️ Performance tip ⚡️ Use a RamDisk for HLS

By default, HLS segment files are written to your container’s local disk. While this works fine, it can:

• Increase disk wear (lots of small writes).
• Cause slower performance on slower storage (e.g., HDD, network drives).

For optimal performance, you can mount a RamDisk to the HLS storage path. This keeps all HLS segments in memory while still making them available to the application.

Example for Linux

1. Create a RamDisk mount point on your host (adjust size=512M as needed for your stream workload):

   sudo mkdir -p /mnt/RamDisk
   sudo mount -t tmpfs -o size=512M tmpfs /mnt/RamDisk
   

2. Update your docker-compose.yaml:

   volumes:
     - /mnt/RamDisk:/var/www/html/storage/app/hls
   

3. Restart your container

If using WSL2 or Docker Desktop

You can emulate a RamDisk with a tool like ImDisk or mount to /tmp inside WSL. Point the Docker volume to that path.

Optional setup

• Using a RamDisk is optional. If you don’t configure one, HLS will still work (segments just go to disk).
• For smaller deployments or casual use, the default disk-based setup is perfectly fine.
• For heavy HLS workloads or long-running live streams, using a RamDisk is strongly recommended.