RYGEL(1)

📦
version 45.2 · 10 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

💖 RYGEL(1) — the Rygel User Manual, bestie edition 💖

okay so welcome to rygel, the manual page for the Rygel User Manual (yes she has main character energy AND a manual page, we love that for her) 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

rygel — a whole collection of DLNA/UPnP AV services, no cap 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

rygel [options]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. options go brrr 💅

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so like, rygel is a home media solution that lets you easily share your audio, video and pictures, and control your media player across your home network. slay. 🌈

but in technical terms (because she contains multitudes) she is both a UPnP AV MediaServer and a MediaRenderer, and both of those are implemented through a plug-in mechanism. iconic.

the way she plays nice with other devices on the market?? that's achieved by conforming to very strict DLNA requirements, plus on-the-fly conversion of media into whatever format the client devices can actually handle. she's a translator, she's a diplomat, she's literally everything 🔥

💅 OPTIONS 💅

the program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (-). here's the full rundown, bestie:

  • -h, --help — show you a summary of the options. your little cheat sheet 🫶
  • --version — show the version of the program.
  • -n, --network-interface=INTERFACE — set the network interfaces rygel listens on. you can use this one multiple times to configure multiple interfaces. INTERFACE can be an IP, a device name, or an ESSID (Linux only, iykyk).
  • -p, --port=PORT — set the listen-port.
  • -t, --disable-transcoding — disable any transcoding. she's not converting anything today 💀
  • -U, --disallow-upload — disable uploading of media files via UPnP.
  • -D, --disallow-deletion — UPnP clients are not allowed to delete media files on the server. hands off 🚫
  • -g, --log-level=LEVEL — a comma-separated list of DOMAIN:LEVEL pairs, letting you set the log level individually for each domain, where DOMAIN is either *, rygel, or the name of a plugin. the allowed log levels are 1=critical, 2=error, 3=warning, 4=message/info, 5=debug. pick your chaos level ⭐
  • -u, --plugin-path=PATH — set the plugin search path.
  • -e, --engine-path=ENGINE_PATH — set the media streaming and transcoding engine search path.
  • -d, --disable-plugin=PLUGIN_NAME — disable the plugin PLUGIN_NAME. bye bestie 🙈
  • -i, --title=PLUGIN_NAME:TITLE — set the title of plugin PLUGIN_NAME to TITLE. you can use this option more than once for every plugin you want to set the name of.
  • -o, --plugin-option=PLUGIN_NAME: OPTION:VALUE1[,VALUE2,...] — set options for a plugin.
  • -P, --disable-upnp — disable advertisement via UPnP and set rygel into streaming-only mode. she's going quiet, lowkey 🦋
  • -c, --config=CONFIG_FILE — use CONFIG_FILE instead of ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/rygel.conf.
  • -s, --shutdown — shut down a currently running instance of rygel. it's giving "we're done here" 💅
  • -r, --replace — replace the currently running instance of rygel with this instance. short for rygel -s && rygel 👑

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /etc/rygel.conf — the system-wide configuration file that controls the behaviour of rygel. see rygel.conf(5) for further details.
  • ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/rygel.conf — the per-user configuration file that controls the behaviour of rygel. see rygel.conf(5) for further details.
  • ${XDG_CONFIG_DIR}/Rygel/*.xml — cached UPnP device description files. little memory keepsakes ✨

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • RYGEL_DISABLE_UPNP — disable advertisement via UPnP and set rygel into streaming-only mode.
  • RYGEL_IFACE — set the network interfaces to bind to.
  • RYGEL_PORT — define the network port to bind to.
  • RYGEL_DISABLE_TRANSCODING — disable transcoding globally.
  • RYGEL_LOG — set the log level of rygel.
  • RYGEL_PLUGIN_PATH — set the plugin search path of rygel.
  • RYGEL_ENGINE_PATH — set the media streaming and transcoding engine search path for rygel.
  • RYGEL_MEDIA_ENGINE — set a specific media streaming engine to pick up from the media engine search path.
  • RYGEL_DISABLE_UPLOAD — disable media file upload via UPnP.
  • RYGEL_DISABLE_DELETION — disable remote file deletion via UPnP.
  • RYGEL_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT — set the time-out for finding the plugins. useful to increase when running inside valgrind. give her a sec, she's thinking 😭
  • RYGEL_DATABASE_DEBUG — if set to 1, the database library will print the used SQL statements. full transparency, periodt.

also, for every plugin you can set the following environment variables:

  • RYGEL_PLUGIN_NAME_TITLE — set the title of the plugin.
  • RYGEL_PLUGIN_NAME_ENABLED — enable or disable the plugin.

💀 BUGS 💀

the BTS can be found at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/rygel/issues — go drop your findings, they'll eat it up 🍓

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

rygel.conf(5)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Jens Georg <mail@jensge.org>

  • wrote this manpage. king behaviour, honestly. thank you for your service 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie, hope rygel slays on your home network 💖

sign-off time ✨ — this absolute icon of a page is rygel, dated 05/23/2026, and it lives in section 1 of the manual as RYGEL(1). mwah 💅🎀🦋

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