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Running Multiple Instances

To run multiple instances of OwnTone on a server, you should copy /etc/owntone.conf to /etc/owntone-zone.conf (for each zone) and modify the following to be unique across all instances:

  • the three port settings (general -> websocket_port, library -> port, and mpd -> port)

  • the database paths (general -> db_path, db_backup_path, and db_cache_path)

  • the service name (library -> name).

  • you probably also want to disable local output (set audio -> type = "disabled").

Then run owntone -c /etc/owntone-zone.conf to run owntone with the new zone configuration.

OwnTone has a systemd template which lets you run this automatically on systems that use systemd. You can start or enable the service for a zone by sudo systemctl start owntone@zone and check that it is running with sudo systemctl status owntone@zone. Use sudo systemctl enable owntone@zone to get the service to start on reboot.