Fliks

Installation

From source

Build and run the backend and web client directly with Node.js, without Docker.

When to use this#

Every other install method bundles its own Node.js, PostgreSQL and FFmpeg. Building from source is for developing Fliks itself, or running it on a platform none of the packaged builds target. You provide and manage every dependency yourself.

Prerequisites#

Dependency Notes
Node.js 24 Same version the Docker image and the Windows/macOS builds use.
PostgreSQL The Docker example runs 18. Create a user and a database for Fliks. The user needs privilege to CREATE EXTENSION, since the backend creates pg_trgm (used for search) itself on boot.
FFmpeg + FFprobe On PATH. Hardware transcoding is only as good as what your FFmpeg build exposes; the packaged builds all use a bundled FFmpeg build with QSV/VAAPI/NVENC support compiled in.

Optional, each needed only by one feature: pg_dump and psql from the PostgreSQL client tools, on PATH and at least as new as the server (database backups and restores); mkvtoolnix (subtitle extraction from Matroska); tesseract-ocr plus the subtile-ocr binary and pgsrip (image-based subtitle OCR); ffsubsync and alass (automatic subtitle sync); Chromaprint's fpcalc (intro detection). Without them, the corresponding feature degrades instead of failing the rest of the server.

Get the code#

bash
git clone https://github.com/fliks-app/fliks.git
cd fliks

Check out a release tag (git checkout v<version>) unless you want the development branch. Run the two builds below from this directory; the client build reads files from backend/, so it needs the whole repository, not just client/.

Build the client#

bash
cd client
npm ci
npx ng build --configuration=production
cd ..

This outputs to client/dist/client/browser.

Build the backend#

bash
cd backend
npm ci
npm run build

This outputs to backend/dist.

Run it#

From the backend directory:

bash
NODE_ENV=production \
SERVE_STATIC_PATH=../client/dist/client/browser \
DB_HOST=localhost DB_PORT=5432 DB_USERNAME=fliks DB_PASSWORD=changeme DB_NAME=fliks \
FLIKS_CONF_DIR=$HOME/.local/share/fliks/conf \
TMDB_API_KEY=your-tmdb-key \
node dist/main
  • NODE_ENV=production is required. Without it the backend runs in development mode: it skips the migrations and syncs the schema straight from the code instead.
  • SERVE_STATIC_PATH tells the backend where the built client lives, so it can serve it on the same port as the API (4848, or PORT); without it there's no web UI to load.
  • FLIKS_CONF_DIR holds the generated JWT signing key. Its default, /app/conf, usually isn't writable outside Docker, and the fallback is a temp directory: lose it and everyone is logged out.
  • TMDB_API_KEY (and TVDB_API_KEY for TVDB): only the published Docker image and the packaged apps carry built-in keys. A source build has none, so without your own keys titles aren't matched and no artwork is fetched.

With NODE_ENV=production, pending database migrations run on every start, so the schema is created on first launch. The backend also reads a .env file in its working directory, if you'd rather keep these values there. See Environment variables for every other variable.

Tip

FLIKS_DATA_DIR (artwork, avatars, backups) defaults to data/ under the current working directory. Set it explicitly if you don't run node dist/main from inside backend/, or it will write wherever you happened to launch it from. The transcode cache defaults to /tmp/transcode; set FLIKS_TRANSCODE_DIR if /tmp is small or tmpfs on your system.

First run#

Continue with the Quick start: open http://localhost:4848, log in with the default account, and add your first library.

See also#

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