Install Jackett on Ubuntu 14.x for Custom Torrents in Sonarr

Jackett lets you use many torrent providers with Sonarr. It turns your home media server into a Torznab API server. Jackett enables popular torrent providers to be searched using Sonarr, the list of compatible providers can be found here. This guide will walk you through installing and autostarting Jackett. In a future guide I will show you how to add your custom Torznab providers in Sonarr. I will assume you already have Sonarr installed and therefore the required mono packages that Jackett also uses. The guide was tested on Ubuntu 14.10 but will work on any distro that uses init.d scripts, another guide which includes the Jackett systemd script will follow.

Attention: If you want to build an older Jackett with public torrent providers see this guide

Install Jackett on Ubuntu 14.x

Install libcurl and bzip for unpacking Jackett, include mono-devel as well to prevent bugs with some private trackers

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev bzip2 mono-devel -y

Download the latest Jackett release, I have automated grabbing the newest release but if it doesn't work check here or here to get the URL.

Note: the Jackett that supports public trackers is here

jackettver=$(wget -q https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett/releases/latest -O - | grep -E \/tag\/ | awk -F "[><]" '{print $3}')
wget -q https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett/releases/download/$jackettver/Jackett.Binaries.Mono.tar.gz

Unpack the Jackett release (adjust the filename if you downloaded a newer version)

tar -xvf Jackett*

Make the Jackett installation folder

sudo mkdir /opt/jackett

Move the unzipped Jackett installation

sudo mv Jackett/* /opt/jackett

Change ownership of Jackett to your main user

sudo chown -R username:username /opt/jackett

Test running Jackett which runs on port 9117 http://ip.address:9117

mono /opt/jackett/JackettConsole.exe

Kill the Jackett process with Ctrl+C so we can start it automatically on boot using an init.d script

Autostart Jackett on Ubuntu 14.x

You only need to use the init.d script or the upstart script

Jackett init.d Script

Create the Jackett init.d startup script

sudo nano /etc/init.d/jackett

Paste the Jackett init.d script (thank you Wesley), adjust your RUN_AS value to your main user

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: Jackett
# Required-Start: $local_fs $network $remote_fs
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $network $remote_fs
# Should-Start: $NetworkManager
# Should-Stop: $NetworkManager
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts instance of Jackett
# Description: starts instance of Jackett using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO

############### EDIT ME ##################
# path to app
APP_PATH=/opt/jackett

# user
RUN_AS=htpcguides

# path to mono bin
DAEMON=$(which mono)

# Path to store PID file
PID_FILE=/var/run/jackett/jackett.pid
PID_PATH=$(dirname $PID_FILE)

# script name
NAME=jackett

# app name
DESC=Jackett

# startup args
EXENAME="JackettConsole.exe"
DAEMON_OPTS=" "$EXENAME

############### END EDIT ME ##################

JACKETT_PID=`ps auxf | grep $EXENAME | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

#Look for PID and create if doesn't exist
if [ ! -d $PID_PATH ]; then
	mkdir -p $PID_PATH
	chown $RUN_AS $PID_PATH
fi

if [ ! -d $DATA_DIR ]; then
	mkdir -p $DATA_DIR
	chown $RUN_AS $DATA_DIR
fi

if [ -e $PID_FILE ]; then
	PID=`cat $PID_FILE`
		if ! kill -0 $PID > /dev/null 2>&1; then
		echo "Removing stale $PID_FILE"
		rm $PID_FILE
	fi
fi

echo $JACKETT_PID > $PID_FILE

case "$1" in
start)
if [ -z "${JACKETT_PID}" ]; then
	echo "Starting $DESC"
	rm -rf $PID_PATH || return 1
	install -d --mode=0755 -o $RUN_AS $PID_PATH || return 1
	start-stop-daemon -d $APP_PATH -c $RUN_AS --start --background --pidfile $PID_FILE --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
	else
	echo "Jackett already running."
fi
;;
stop)
echo "Stopping $DESC"
echo $JACKETT_PID > $PID_FILE
start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PID_FILE --retry 15
;;

restart|force-reload)
echo "Restarting $DESC"
start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PID_FILE --retry 15
start-stop-daemon -d $APP_PATH -c $RUN_AS --start --background --pidfile $PID_FILE --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
;;
status)
# Use LSB function library if it exists
if [ -f /lib/lsb/init-functions ]; then
	. /lib/lsb/init-functions
if [ -e $PID_FILE ]; then
	status_of_proc -p $PID_FILE "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
	else
	log_daemon_msg "$NAME is not running"
	exit 3
fi

else
# Use basic functions
if [ -e $PID_FILE ]; then
	PID=`cat $PID_FILE`
if kill -0 $PID > /dev/null 2>&1; then
	echo " * $NAME is running"
	exit 0
fi
else
	echo " * $NAME is not running"
	exit 3
fi
fi
;;
*)
N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0

Make the Jackett init.d script executable

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/jackett

Update your system to use the Jackett init.d script

sudo update-rc.d jackett defaults

Now start the Jackett service

sudo service jackett start

Jackett Upstart Script

Create the Jackett upstart file

sudo nano /etc/init/jackett.conf

Paste the Jackett upstart script, change user if there is a specific user you want to run Jackett as

#Jackett startup script

env DIR=/opt/jackett
setuid user
setgid nogroup

start on runlevel [2345]

stop on runlevel [016]

#respawn

exec mono $DIR/JackettConsole.exe

You can access Jackett on port 9117. Follow the  Jackett configuration guide so you can add custom torrents in Sonarr.