Storage & Paths

Dubby uses three primary volume mounts. These paths are the same whether you’re running Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or Unraid.

Volume overview

Container path	Purpose	Persistence
`/data`	Database, metadata, trickplay	Persistent — back this up
`/cache`	Transcode cache	Ephemeral — SSD recommended
`/media`	Your media library	Read-only optional

`/data` — persistent storage

Back this up. It contains everything Dubby needs to remember:

/data
├── dubby.db           # SQLite database (library, users, watch history)
├── .encryption-key    # Auto-generated encryption key for sensitive config
├── backups/           # Database backups
├── images/            # Cached artwork from TMDB (posters, backdrops, logos)
└── trickplay/         # Seek preview thumbnail sprites

Database: ~50 MB per 1,000 media items
Images: 1-5 GB typical, grows with library size (fetched from TMDB on demand)
Trickplay: ~50 MB per movie/episode with trickplay enabled

`/cache` — transcode cache

Temporary working space for active playback sessions:

/cache
├── {session-id}/      # HLS segments for active sessions
│   ├── master.m3u8
│   ├── playlist.m3u8
│   ├── segment_0.ts
│   └── {track-id}.vtt
└── ...

Can grow to several GB during active playback
Cleaned up automatically when sessions end
SSD strongly recommended for smooth transcoding
Safe to delete when the server is stopped

`/media` — your media library

Mount your existing media directories here. Read-only is fine unless you use features that write to the media directory (subtitle downloads, podcasts).

Single mount

volumes:
  - /mnt/media:/media

Multiple mounts

volumes:
  - /mnt/movies:/media/movies
  - /mnt/tv:/media/tv
  - /mnt/anime:/media/anime

Downloaded subtitles are saved alongside your media files:

Movie Name (2024)/
├── Movie Name (2024).mkv
├── Movie Name (2024).en.srt         # Downloaded subtitle
└── Movie Name (2024).en.forced.srt  # Downloaded forced subtitle

Customizing paths

Storage directories can be customized with environment variables. In Docker, the Dockerfile sets /data and /cache as defaults — you typically don’t need to change these.

Variable	Docker default	Description
`DUBBY_DATA_DIR`	`/data`	Base data directory
`DUBBY_CACHE_DIR`	`/cache`	General cache
`DUBBY_METADATA_CACHE_DIR`	`DUBBY_DATA_DIR/images`	TMDB image cache
`DUBBY_TRICKPLAY_CACHE_DIR`	`DUBBY_DATA_DIR/trickplay`	Trickplay sprites

The transcode working directory defaults to /tmp/dubby/transcode (symlinked to /cache in Docker) and can be changed via the server.transcodeDir config key or DUBBY_SERVER_TRANSCODE_DIR environment variable.

Backup recommendations

At minimum, back up the /data volume regularly. This contains:

Your SQLite database (users, library metadata, watch history, settings)
Your encryption key (required to decrypt sensitive config values)
Cached artwork (can be re-fetched, but saves bandwidth)
Trickplay thumbnails (can be regenerated, but it’s slow)

The /cache volume does not need to be backed up.