Can't get hardware acceletation working- Docker on Linux

Can't get hardware acceletation working- Docker on Linux - Printable Version

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Can't get hardware acceletation working- Docker on Linux - definitelyhascats - 2025-08-12

Hello!

I've tried to set Jellyfin up on my home server, but I can't get the hardware acceleration (HWA since I'm lazy) to work. I'll preface this by saying that my server is a Linux VM on Proxmox, and I know for a fact the passthrough is working correctly- I also have a plex server running that has HWA working just fine. I've clearly done something wrong with setting this up with Jellyfin specifically.

My dockerfile can be found in this pastebin: https://pastebin.com/U1mtAfkt

I'm following the instructions found here: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/post-install/transcoding/hardware-acceleration/nvidia#configure-with-linux-virtualization

There's one step of those instructions I can't get to work, and I'm betting it's the problem: when I run

Code:
docker exec -it jellyfin ldconfig

I get the following error:

Code:
root@debian:/configStorage/config# docker exec -it jellyfin ldconfig

WARNING: Error loading config file: /root/.docker/config.json: read /root/.docker/config.json: is a directory

ldconfig: Can't create temporary cache file /etc/ld.so.cache~: Permission denied

Note that I ran that as root, not as a sudo command. I'm not sure why that's happening though, I was kind of hoping someone here could point me in the right direction.

I am testing the HWA by playing a video and changing the bitrate; I'm not 100% sure where to go to check inside Jellyfin's UI to see if HWA is working, but nvidia-smi doesn't show me any running processes and Proxmox's CPU monitor shows the CPU usage skyrocket to 80% as soon as the video plays, indicating HWA isn't working.

RE: Can't get hardware acceletation working- Docker on Linux - crobibero - 2025-08-12

It’s been a while since I set up nvidia HWA but I don’t recall the ldconfig command being required.

You need to actually enable HWA within Jellyfin (Settings > Playback > Transcoding)

Then open an ffmpeg log after playback to see what transcode method was used