Kodi (formerly known as XBMC) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub that can be installed on Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS and Android, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls.

Basic module usage

The NixOS module for Kodi sets Kodi up as a desktop session. With this configuration Kodi will run automatically on boot:

{
  services.xserver.enable = true;
  services.xserver.desktopManager.kodi.enable = true;
  services.xserver.displayManager.autoLogin.enable = true;
  services.xserver.displayManager.autoLogin.user = "kodi";

  services.xserver.displayManager.lightdm.greeter.enable = false;

  # Define a user account
  users.extraUsers.kodi.isNormalUser = true;
}

Access from other machines

For this to work Kodi's remote interface must be enabled in the Kodi configuration. Kodi uses by default udp/tcp port 8080, which must be allowed in the firewall:

{
  networking.firewall = {
    allowedTCPPorts = [ 8080 ];
    allowedUDPPorts = [ 8080 ];
  };
}

With Wayland

Especially on less-powerful ARM boards the wayland variant is faster. In this example cage, kiosk compositor for Wayland, will run Kodi as its only application:

{ pkgs, ... }: {
  # Define a user account
  users.extraUsers.kodi.isNormalUser = true;
  services.cage.user = "kodi";
  services.cage.program = "${pkgs.kodi-wayland}/bin/kodi-standalone";
  services.cage.enable = true;
}

Plugins

There are two different ways to install plugins. You can either set the relevant option (search pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix for "wrapKodi" for a list) through NixOS or home-manager:

nixpkgs.config.kodi.enableAdvancedLauncher = true;

or override Kodi to include the plugins (see pkgs/applications/video/kodi/plugins.nix for a list or search in the kodiPlugins namespace):

environment.systemPackages = [
	(pkgs.kodi.withPackages (kodiPkgs: with kodiPkgs; [
		jellyfin
	]))
];

Or if using as the startup desktop service:

  services.xserver.desktopManager.kodi.package =
    pkgs.kodi.withPackages (pkgs: with pkgs; [
    jellycon
	]))
];