NZBGet

NZBGet is a fast, lightweight Usenet downloader written in C++. It is the recommended Usenet client on Bytesized. It uses far less RAM and CPU than SABnzbd and keeps up with high-speed feeds without breaking a sweat.

NZBGet ships with every Bytesized Appbox as a one-click install. Once installed, the dashboard link takes you straight to its web UI, and the *arr suite (Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Readarr) can hand downloads off to it automatically.

Default setup

After install you can reach NZBGet from the dashboard, or directly at:

https://<your-user>.<your-server>.bysh.me/nzbget/

The trailing slash matters. The web UI prompts for a username and password; both are shown on the NZBGet tile in your dashboard.

Default	Value
Web login	your Appbox username
Web password	shown on the NZBGet tile in the dashboard
MainDir	`~/nzbget`
DestDir	`~/nzbget/download`
NzbDir	`~/nzbget/nzb` (NZB watch folder)
TempDir	`~/nzbget/tmp`
Categories	Movies, Series, Music, Software

Finished downloads land in ~/nzbget/download/<Category>/.

Adding a Usenet provider

Open the web UI, then go to Settings → News-Servers and click Add Server. Fill in:

Setting	Notes
Host	your provider's news server
Port	usually 563 for SSL, 119 for plain text
Username / Password	from your Usenet provider
Encryption	`yes` for port 563
Connections	20 to 50 is a reasonable starting point. Check your provider's limit

Click Save all changes at the bottom, then reload NZBGet from Settings → SYSTEM → Reload.

Finding your ControlPort

The *arr apps need NZBGet's internal ControlPort, not the port from the URL. The URL uses 443 (HTTPS via Apache reverse proxy). ControlPort is the loopback port NZBGet itself listens on. Two ways to find it:

In the web UI, go to Settings → SECURITY and read the ControlPort field.
From a shell on your Appbox: grep '^ControlPort' ~/.config/nzbget/nzbget.conf.

Connecting Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr or Readarr

Each *arr app talks to NZBGet over its API on the same Appbox. The settings are the same regardless of which *arr you are configuring.

Step 1. In the *arr app, go to Settings → Download Clients and click the + button.

Step 2. Pick NZBGet from the list.

Step 3. Fill in:

Setting	Value
Name	NZBGet
Enable	on
Host	`localhost`
Port	your NZBGet ControlPort (see the section above)
URL Base	leave empty
Username	your Appbox username
Password	your NZBGet password (same as the web UI)
Category	one of `Movies`, `Series`, `Music`, `Software`, or a category you've added yourself (see below)
Use SSL	off. This is a loopback connection on the same box

Step 4. Click Test. If you get a green checkmark, click Save. If you see "unable to connect", you're almost certainly using the URL port instead of the ControlPort.

Category names matter

NZBGet routes downloads into folders by category. The *arr apps default to lowercase names like tv, movies, music, books, which don't match what NZBGet ships out of the box (Movies, Series, Music, Software). Pick one of two approaches:

Use NZBGet's names. In the *arr's NZBGet settings, set Category to Series (Sonarr), Movies (Radarr) or Music (Lidarr). Nothing to change in NZBGet.
Use the *arr's defaults. In NZBGet, go to Settings → CATEGORIES, add a new category named after what the *arr sends (e.g. tv for Sonarr, prowlarr for Prowlarr), click Save all changes, then reload from Settings → SYSTEM → Reload.

For Readarr (books) and Prowlarr there's no shipped category, so you'll need to add one in NZBGet either way. Common choices are Books for Readarr and Prowlarr for Prowlarr. Whatever you name it in NZBGet, put the same string in the *arr's Category field.

About the pre-configured download clients

Your *arr apps ship with a download client already configured. Sonarr typically has Bytesized - Deluge (or Bytesized - rTorrent), Radarr and Prowlarr have BYSH - Torrent Blackhole. These exist for torrent indexers (Torznab) and don't conflict with NZBGet. If you want to keep using torrents alongside Usenet, leave them enabled. If you're going Usenet-only, you can disable or delete them in Settings → Download Clients.

Post-processing

Every Appbox ships with a post-processing script at ~/.config/nzbget/filebot.sh that runs after each download. When Filebot is installed, it renames the finished file and symlinks it into ~/media/. You don't normally need to touch this script.

If you'd rather have your *arr app handle renaming and library import (recommended when you're already using Sonarr or Radarr), do two things:

In NZBGet, go to Settings → EXTENSION SCRIPTS and clear the Extensions field, then save and reload.
In each *arr app, open Settings → Download Clients and toggle Show Advanced at the top of the page. A Completed Download Handling section will then appear below the list of download clients. Enable it there so the *arr imports finished downloads itself.

Running both Filebot and *arr import at once results in duplicate copies in your media folder.

Tips and tricks

Increasing throughput

Under Settings → DOWNLOAD QUEUE, raise ArticleCache to 256 to 512 MB on boxes with plenty of RAM, and WriteBuffer to 1024. The defaults are conservative for low-RAM environments.

Restarting NZBGet

The fastest way is via the dashboard: click the NZBGet tile and pick Restart. From the shell: ~/.shutdown/nzbget && ~/.startup/nzbget.

Logs

NZBGet writes its log to ~/.config/nzbget/nzbget.log. The web UI also has a MESSAGES tab that shows the same content live, useful when troubleshooting failed downloads.

Nzbget