Nicotine-plus-docker

Nicotine+ is an open source graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network. As per their website, Nicotine+ aims to be a pleasant, Free and Open Source (FOSS) alternative to the official Soulseek client, providing additional functionality while keeping current with the Soulseek protocol.

Supported Architectures

Application Setup

The application can be accessed at:

• https://yourhost:6081/ (recommended)
• http://localhost:6080/ (only works from the same machine)

⚠️ Breaking Change (Selkies migration): The underlying Selkies web client now uses the WebCodecs API for video decoding, which requires a Secure Context. This means plain HTTP access only works via localhost. For remote access, you must use HTTPS on port 6081 or place the container behind a reverse proxy with HTTPS termination (e.g. SWAG). A self-signed certificate is automatically generated on first run.

Usage

Here are some example snippets to help you get started creating a container.

docker-compose (recommended)

---
services:
  nicotine-plus:
    image: ghcr.io/fletchto99/nicotine-plus-docker:latest
    container_name: nicotine-plus
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/config
      - /path/to/downloads:/data/downloads
      - /path/to/incomplete:/data/incomplete_downloads
    ports:
      - 6080:6080
      - 6081:6081
      - 2234-2239:2234-2239
    shm_size: "1gb"
    restart: unless-stopped

docker cli

docker run -d \
  --name=nicotine-plus \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -p 6080:6080 \
  -p 6081:6081 \
  -p 2234-2239:2234-2239 \
  -v /path/to/data:/config \
  -v /path/to/downloads:/data/downloads \
  -v /path/to/incomplete:/data/incomplete_downloads \
  --shm-size="1gb" \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  ghcr.io/fletchto99/nicotine-plus-docker:latest

Parameters

Container images are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively. For example, -p 3001:3001 would expose port 3001 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 3001 outside the container.

Optional run configurations

Options in all Selkies-based GUI containers

This container is based on LinuxServer's Docker Baseimage Selkies which means there are additional environment variables and run configurations to enable or disable specific functionality.

Optional environment variables

Security Hardening

This container ships with sensible security defaults enabled:

These can be overridden by setting the variable to false in your environment if needed.

Additional hardening options

Note: The built-in basic auth (PASSWORD) is a convenience feature, not a robust security mechanism. For internet-facing deployments, place the container behind a reverse proxy with proper authentication (e.g. SWAG).

Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)

You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__.

As an example:

-e FILE__PASSWORD=/run/secrets/mysecretpassword

Will set the environment variable PASSWORD based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretpassword file.

Umask for running applications

For all of our images we provide the ability to override the default umask settings for services started within the containers using the optional -e UMASK=022 setting. Keep in mind umask is not chmod it subtracts from permissions based on its value it does not add. Please read up here before asking for support.

User / Group Identifiers

When using volumes (-v flags) permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID and group PGID.

Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.

In this instance PUID=1000 and PGID=1000, to find yours use id user as below:

  $ id username
    uid=1000(dockeruser) gid=1000(dockergroup) groups=1000(dockergroup)

Support Info

• Shell access whilst the container is running: docker exec -it nicotine-plus /bin/bash
• To monitor the logs of the container in realtime: docker logs -f nicotine-plus
• container version number
  • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' nicotine-plus
• image version number
  • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' ghcr.io/fletchto99/nicotine-plus-docker:latest

Building locally

The build verifies the Nicotine+ release archive against its upstream SHA-256 checksum before extracting it.

If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:

git clone https://github.com/fletchto99/nicotine-plus-docker.git
cd nicotine-plus-docker
docker build \
  --no-cache \
  --pull \
  --build-arg VERSION="$(cat .github/.current-release)" \
  --build-arg BUILD_DATE="$(date -u +'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')" \
  -t ghcr.io/fletchto99/nicotine-plus-docker:latest .

CI and release publishing

Pull requests run build checks and workflow linting, plus browser smoke tests on native AMD64 and ARM64 runners. Browser tests use Node.js 24.

Publishing builds each architecture once on a native runner with a shared UTC build timestamp and uploads the images to GHCR by digest. Both image digests must pass the smoke tests before the release tags are updated in GHCR and Docker Hub; the tested images are not rebuilt for publishing.

Scheduled weekly publishes bypass build caches and pull current base images to refresh installed dependencies.

Versions

• 17.09.26: - Migrated to Debian Trixie base (from Ubuntu Noble).
• 09.04.26: - Migrated to Ubuntu Noble base (from Arch Linux). Nicotine+ installed from official PPA.
• 02.04.26: - Migrated to baseimage-selkies (from baseimage-kasmvnc). Arch Linux base with Wayland support. Breaking: Remote HTTP access no longer works; use HTTPS (:6081) or a reverse proxy instead (see Application Setup).
• 19.07.23: - Initial release.