Why Install Ruin and Questarr on Your NAS?
Installing media management apps like Ruin Media and Questarr on a NAS lets you process, organize, and interact with media libraries directly on network storage using Docker-based web apps and browser access, without turning every task into a manual file operation on your desktop.
Ruin Media is a Docker-based PHP web app that deliberately lowers the quality of images and audio files, with all processing done client-side and nothing stored on the server. Questarr is an Arr-inspired self-hosted video game manager that lets you discover, track, organize, and automatically download games. Both run neatly inside containers on your NAS, so they stay isolated yet easy to update.
You should bother with this if you already use your NAS for media, enjoy tinkering with Docker, and want browser-based tools instead of extra apps on every PC. The only real prerequisite is a NAS that supports Docker and a working Portainer setup with the latest version installed. If Portainer sounds unfamiliar, don’t worry; you’ll only touch a few screens and paste in the provided stack definitions.
Practical Setup: What You Need Before You Start
Before you install media apps on your NAS, make sure the underlying pieces are ready. Both Ruin Media on UGREEN and Questarr on Synology use Docker containers managed via Portainer. If Docker or Portainer is missing, follow your NAS documentation to enable Docker, then install the latest Portainer release and confirm you can log in with your Portainer credentials.
On Synology, you also prepare folders ahead of time. Go to File Station, open the docker folder, and create a new folder named questarr in lowercase. Inside that, create two more folders named data and media, again using lowercase letters only. These will hold Questarr’s database and media collection, keeping configuration and content in predictable locations.
For Questarr, you need IGDB credentials: a Client ID and Client Secret, which you obtain separately and keep handy for later configuration. One quotable reminder from the guide is that “you will need the IGDB Client ID and IGDB Client Secret later at STEP 11.” Having these ready saves you from bouncing back and forth once the container is running.
Step-by-Step: Ruin Media on UGREEN and Questarr on Synology
Now for the core procedure. Both tools rely on Portainer stacks: you paste a small configuration, deploy it, then access the web interface in your browser. Follow the sequence below carefully; the order matters because later steps assume the containers are already running.
- Confirm the latest Portainer is installed on your UGREEN and/or Synology NAS, then log into Portainer with your username and password and click Home, then Live connect.
- For Questarr on Synology, open File Station, go to the docker folder, create a questarr folder, then create data and media folders inside it, all in lowercase.
- In Portainer, click Stacks on the left sidebar, then + Add stack; in the Name field type ruinmedia for UGREEN or questarr for Synology, depending on which app you are setting up.
- For Ruin on UGREEN, paste the provided stack code defining the ruinmedia service that uses image korosys/ruin.media:latest, exposes port 6082 to port 80, and sets restart: on-failure:5 in the Portainer Stacks web editor.
- For Questarr on Synology, paste the Questarr stack code that uses image ghcr.io/doezer/questarr:latest, maps port 4555, mounts /volume1/docker/questarr/data to /app/data and /volume1/docker/questarr/media to /data, and defines PUID, PGID, JWT_SECRET, and other environment variables, then adjust PUID, PGID, and a random 64-length JWT_SECRET to your own values.
- Scroll down in each stack page and click Deploy the stack; wait a few minutes for the installation, then look for the message “Success Stack successfully deployed” in the top right corner.
- When Ruin Media is deployed on UGREEN, open your browser and go to http://ugreen-ip-address:6082, click Choose file to upload an audio or image file, select STANDARD or RUINATION mode, then click RUIN ME to process it.
- When Questarr is deployed on Synology, open your browser and go to http://Synology-ip-address:4555, create your administrator account, enter your IGDB Client ID and IGDB Client Secret, and complete the onboarding to reach the Questarr dashboard.
The most common gotchas at this stage come from typos and mismatched IDs: folder names must be lowercase for Questarr, and PUID/PGID and JWT_SECRET must be updated rather than left at example values. For Ruin Media, make sure you use the provided ports mapping so that port 6082 on your NAS actually reaches port 80 inside the container.
Once these steps are complete, both containers respond in the browser. According to the guide, you will see “Success Stack successfully deployed” when everything is set correctly. From there, you can start experimenting: Ruin ‘ruins’ images or audio on demand, while Questarr displays its dark-mode dashboard with metadata-driven views of your game collection.
Using Ruin Media on Your UGREEN NAS
Ruin Media has a playful purpose: it intentionally degrades images or audio while keeping all processing on the client side and storing nothing on the server. That makes it a fun, low-risk tool to run on a shared NAS, since it never writes user content into the container itself. Once the stack is deployed, accessing Ruin is a matter of pointing your browser at the correct port on your UGREEN NAS.
With the ruinmedia stack active, open your browser and type http://ugreen-ip-address:6082. From there, you click Choose file, upload an audio or image file, select either STANDARD or RUINATION mode, then click RUIN ME to process the file. Your image is now Ruined, and the result displays in the browser.
Because the app is Docker-based, you do not need to worry about cluttering your NAS with configuration files. The healthcheck defined in the stack configuration uses nc to test port 80 inside the container, ensuring Portainer can tell whether the instance is healthy. If the container fails, the restart policy on-failure:5 instructs Docker to try again up to five times, giving a bit of self-healing without manual intervention.
Configuring Questarr on Synology and Final Takeaways
Questarr focuses on game libraries rather than audio or images, but it follows a similar pattern: containerized app, NAS-mounted storage, and a browser dashboard that handles discovery, tracking, and automated downloads. Once the stack is deployed and the initial account created, the dashboard shows your collection, backlog status, and connection points to indexers and download clients.
The stack configuration pins Questarr to port 4555, sets the SQLITE_DB_PATH to /app/data/sqlite.db, and mounts /volume1/docker/questarr/data as the data directory and /volume1/docker/questarr/media as the media directory. Environment variables such as PORT, PUID, PGID, and JWT_SECRET tie the container to your NAS’s user and group IDs and secure its authentication token. The built-in healthcheck uses nc to confirm port 4555 is responding before Portainer considers the container healthy.
When you install media apps on your NAS in this way, you gain web-based tools that live alongside your existing storage but remain neatly contained. The work is front-loaded: you prepare folders, credentials, and Docker stacks, then let Portainer manage the heavy lifting. Once you see each “Success Stack successfully deployed” message, you can focus on experimenting with ruined images or organized game backlogs instead of wrestling with manual file operations.
