Roon Server on QNAP NAS

If your QNAP NAS meets the requirements, you can use it as your Roon Core.

If your NAS is below the recommendations, it does not mean it won’t run great on your NAS. It depends on your use-case. Roon offers some cpu intensive features, such as audio upsampling, room correction and other digital signal processing tasks. These are optional and probably the most cpu-extensive tasks in the software. If you are unsure, if your QNAP NAS is capable of handling your setup, the best way to ensure this, to just give it a try.

Roon Labs hardware recommendation can be read here.

Requirements:

  • Intel x64 based QNAP NAS
  • QTS 4.3.x

Recommended:

  • An intel i3 – i7 cpu or equivalent
  • SSD storage for Roon Server’s database
Installation

Roon Server for QNAP is available in the QNAP App Center. You just need to navigate to the Multimedia section and click on the “Install”-button below the Roon Server icon. That’s it.

After installation, you need to specify the location for Roon Server’s database. Start this process by clicking the “Configure” button.

A window will appear to let you specify the folder, which you would like to use for Roon Server’s database.
In case you need to create a new folder, this needs to be done in the QNAP “Control Panel” under “Shared folders”, or use QNAP’s FileStation, if you need to create a folder within a shared folder.

Troubleshooting

Since QTS 4.5.x some codecs have been removed from a component, that is required by Roon Server. Especially AAC media files won’t play. You can supply your own ffmpeg file in the RoonOnNAS/bin directory of you selected Roon Server database storage.

A good option to download the current version of ffmpeg is “JohnVanSickle – ffmpeg static builds”. Make sure to download the amd64 version for linux.

You only need to move the ffmpeg file of the downloaded and extracted archive to the RoonOnNAS/bin directory. Restart Roon Server afterwards.

The Roon Server software itself, currently has a bug, which causes all local files to disappear. The issue is known and there will be a fix for the issue in the upcoming version of Roon Server.

Until this issue is fixed, I have created a new qpkg installer to circumvent the issue. Once the issue is fixed, you can revert to the latest QNAP App Store build.

To download Roon Server’s log files, simply press the ambulance icon in the Roon Server web administration within the QNAP administration.

QNAP App Center Manual Install

In case you need to install Roon Server manually by a .qpkg file, you do this by clicking the “Install Manually” icon in the QNAP App Center.

Then click browse in the window and select the Roon Server .qpkg file.

To start the installation, click “Install”

Changelog
Current Version: 2021-10-03
  • Added libraries required for future Roon Server releases.
  • Roon Server has been tested with QTS 5 and it can be installed now
  • All database folders are now parented in a “RoonOnNAS”-folder (they will be migrated when updating)
  • ffmpeg can no longer be provided in the Roon Server web UI. Instead it can be copied in the /RoonOnNAS/bin directory. When ffmpeg has been manually provided before, it will automatically be migrated to this new folder.
  • improved handling of Roon Server’s process id, which could have lead to situation before, where Roon Server could not be stopped or started in the app center

 

Version: 2021-05-18

  • Added checks to prevent code injection in the Roon Server web interface.
  • Added Verification of session id when opening the web interface and before performing any actions in it.

Version: 2021-02-01

  • New feature to provide own version of ffmpeg. The QNAP ffmpeg version could cause issues with aac, due to missing codecs on the QNAP system. This issue can be solved, by providing a static ffmpeg build.
  • Roon Server will not be displayed as a system process in the Resource Monitor anymore
  • Fixed a bug, that could cause the webpanel to display Roon Server is not running, even though it was running.
  • ffmpeg modal will currently be in english or german only

Version: 2020-07-15

  • Fixed an installation issue of version 2020-06-22, which resulted in Roon Server not starting after installation.

Version: 2020-06-22

  • Fix the issue that the user has to reauthorise Roon Server after every reboot.

Version: 2019-06-09

  • The QNAP API calls might not work when the web ui is opened in the browser by the local hostname.
  • The “Download Logs” button, will also download the stdout log file.
  • An error is fixed, which checks if the database directory location exists before Roon Server starts.
  • Additional info in the log file, to help reproduce certain issues in the future.
  • The ‘home’ and ‘homes’ directories have been removed as a database location option

Version: 2018-06-14

  • Completely new web interface
  • Storage path of RoonServer’s database can be set in the app’s web ui.
  • Web UI includes a check if multimedia functions are enabled on the QNAP
  • Localized to: German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish
  • Web UI is limited to admin users now