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How to setup Prowlarr (with Docker & Caddy)

Ready to use

Description

Prowlarr is an indexer manager/proxy built on the popular arr .net/reactjs base stack to integrate with your various PVR apps.
Prowlarr supports management of both Torrent Trackers and Usenet Indexers.
It integrates seamlessly with LazyLibrarian, Lidarr, Mylar3, Radarr, Readarr, and Sonarr offering complete management of your indexers with no per app Indexer setup required (we do it all).

Create a DNS record (optional)

Warning

Remember!
Whenever you expose your services to the outside world, you open up the possiblity of an attack by hackers.
Only expose to the outside world the services you actually need to access when you're away from home.

You probably won't need to access Prowlarr from outside the network too often.
So you probably shouldn't make it available outside of your network.

But if you do, then go to cPanel and add a new record (e.g. prowlarr.akdscloud.eu).

Caddy

prowlarr.akdscloud.eu:443 {
    header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=31536000;
    reverse_proxy localhost:9696
}

Folders

Create the folder structure.

cd ~/services
mkdir -p prowlarr/config common/downloads

Docker

  1. Add the prowlarr section to your docker-compose.yml file:

      prowlarr:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/prowlarr:latest
    container_name: prowlarr
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/Bucharest
    volumes:
      - ./prowlarr/data:/config
      - ./common/downloads:/downloads
    ports:
      - 9696:9696
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - caddy

  2. Download and start prowlarr:

    docker compose up -d prowlarr

Try it out

See if you can access the Prowlarr web interface at http://your_server_ip:9696.

Troubleshooting

If it doesn't work, see the troubleshooting guide.

Configuration

Admin password

Set a strong admin password.

Add indexers

  1. Click on Add Indexer (under the search bar)
  2. Search for a torrent site where you have an account and then click on it
  3. Add a name, username and password/passkey. If you want, you can set other fields you like.
  4. Click on Test
  5. Click on Save

Do the same for any other indexers you want to add (depending on what torrent accounts you have).

Applications

You will need to configure Prowlarr to communicate with Radarr and Sonarr.
This will allow both of them to use Prowlarr's indexers (i.e. torrent sites) when searching for movies/tvseries.

Radarr

Settings > Apps > Click on the big PLUS sign > Radarr

Prowlarr Server: http://localhost:9696
Radarr Server: http://localhost:7878
API key: <get it from the Radarr settings>

Sonarr

Settings > Apps > Click on the big PLUS sign > Sonarr

Prowlarr Server: http://localhost:9696
Radarr Server: http://localhost:8989
API key: <get it from the Sonarr settings>

Putting it altogether

After you're done configuring both Radarr and Sonarr (as described above), go to Prowlarr's main page and click on the Sync App Indexers button.
Then go to:

  • Radarr's main page > Settings > Indexers > Check if all of Prowlarr's indexers are present
  • Sonarr's main page > Settings > Indexers > Check if all of Prowlarr's indexers are present

Download Clients (optional)

If you intend to do searches directly within Prowlarr, you need to add Download Clients. Otherwise, you do not need to add them here.

If you decide to, then follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Download Clients > Click on the big PLUS sign > qBittorrent
  2. Name: qBittorrent, Host: localhost, Port: 8080, username, password
  3. Click on Test
  4. Click on Save

Indexer Proxies (optional)

Some torrent sites use Catcha (or other anti-DDoS mechanisms).
This prevents Prowlarr from searching for torrents properly.
Fortunately, there is a solution. There is something called FlareSolver. It basically solves Captchas.
But not all torrent sites have this problem. In fact, most don't. So if you don't have an indexer that says it needs this (when you add it to Prowlarr), then don't bother.

If you do need it, then you'll need to first install and configure a flaresolverr instance. After you have one up and running, follow these steps to configure Prowlarr to use FlareSolverr:

  1. Go to Settings > Indexers > Click on the big PLUS sign > FlareSolverr
  2. Name: FlareSolverr
  3. Host: http://localhost:8191/
  4. Tags: you'll need to edit your indexer (i.e. torrent site) that needs FlareSolverr and a tag to it. Then put the exact same tag here.
  5. Click on Test
  6. Click on Save

Other settings (optional)

Feel free to change other settings (e.g. the time format).

Official site

Github page