UPNP server in linux docker container

[John Minson]

I have been using HiFiCast for a long time primarily interfacing with minidlna on a Linux host  and it works great .

Recently I started running minidlna in a Docker container and that works great as well with one issue .

Everytime minidlna is restarted (via docker) HiFiCast thinks its a new server . The only issue with this is I have to set the Top Level Music and Album folders which is no big deal .

I thought it was the docker generated UUID for the container causing this so I took steps to make the UUID static but it didnt help .

A static ip is in use by minidlna .

Any ideas ?

[Peter van Tienderen]

Not exactly my expertise, but to educate myself I looked into this a bit more. 

See
https://medium.com/@cordon.alejandro/unique-identifiers-in-android-and-ios-android-id-uuid-and-other-strategies-for-device-b659658423c3

Android _ID apparently uses a different approach than UUID, and the device is one element..

For normal use maybe the serial nr, as specified in the Minidlna config. 

For dockers maybe a serial is recreated every time, with a different number, to avoid multiple instances colliding?. 

Could be generated using a unique time stamp maybe. .

Is there a way to enforce this to be fixed during docker creation? 

Op maandag 12 januari 2026 om 15:37:08 UTC schreef John Minson:

[John Minson]

I set the serial explicitly and it didnt help . 

[John Minson]

So  Mr. Woerdman fixed my issue .

I dont know I could have been using minidlna for 10 years + and never noticed the option "uuid=" 

As Home Simpson would say "DOH!"

I ran 'uuidgen"  and put that in my minidlna.conf and it worked

[John Minson]

I dont feel so bad . Not all minidlna manpages reflect the existence of "uuid="