Installation

Install pre-built binaries or build Rockbox Daemon from source.

The recommended path is to install a pre-built binary for your platform. Building from source is documented in Architecture › Build.

Pre-built binaries

Pre-built packages for the latest release are on the Releases page.

Platform	Architecture	Package
Linux	x86_64	.tar.gz
Linux	aarch64	.tar.gz
macOS	x86_64	.pkg
macOS	aarch64 (Apple Silicon)	.pkg + .dmg

Package managers

Ubuntu / Debian

echo "deb [trusted=yes] https://apt.fury.io/tsiry/ /" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fury.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rockbox

Fedora

Add the following to /etc/yum.repos.d/fury.repo:

[fury]
name=Gemfury Private Repo
baseurl=https://yum.fury.io/tsiry/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

Then:

sudo dnf install rockbox

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install tsirysndr/tap/rockbox

macOS desktop app (Homebrew cask)

brew install --cask tsirysndr/tap/rockbox

Installs Rockbox.app into /Applications — the native desktop client with the daemon embedded, so no separate rockboxd process is needed.

Arch Linux

paru -S rockboxd-bin

Universal installer

The installer detects your OS and architecture and drops the right binary under /usr/local/bin:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsirysndr/rockboxd/HEAD/install.sh | bash

Docker

docker pull tsiry/rockbox

docker run --rm -it \
  -p 6060-6063:6060-6063 \
  -p 6600:6600 \
  -p 7878-7881:7878-7881 \
  -p 3483:3483 \
  -p 9999:9999 \
  -p 1704:1704 \
  -p 1705:1705 \
  -p 1780:1780 \
  -v $HOME/Music:/root/Music \
  tsiry/rockbox

For AirPlay, Squeezelite and UPnP discovery (mDNS / SSDP) you’ll usually want --network host instead of port mapping — multicast does not cross Docker’s default bridge network.

Run as a systemd service

Once rockbox is on your PATH:

rockbox service install    # enable and start
rockbox service status     # check status
rockbox service uninstall  # stop and disable

This installs a user-level systemd unit at ~/.config/systemd/user/rockboxd.service.

Verifying the install

rockbox --version
rockbox start

The daemon binds these ports by default:

Service	Port	Protocol
gRPC	6061	gRPC / gRPC-Web
GraphQL + Web UI	6062	HTTP / WS
HTTP REST	6063	HTTP
MPD	6600	MPD

See the full port reference.

Building from source

If you want to hack on Rockbox Daemon itself, see Architecture › Build for the Make + Cargo + Zig toolchain.

Uninstall

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt-get remove rockbox
rockbox service uninstall   # if you installed the systemd unit

Fedora

sudo dnf remove rockbox
rockbox service uninstall

Arch

sudo pacman -Rns rockboxd-bin

macOS (Homebrew)

brew uninstall rockbox

macOS desktop app (Homebrew cask)

brew uninstall --cask rockbox

macOS .pkg

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/rockbox /usr/local/bin/rockboxd
sudo pkgutil --forget io.github.tsirysndr.rockbox