Bemby — Emby keep-alive & check-in panel, one click on Railway

Bemby is a self-hosted panel that keeps your Emby accounts active: scheduled check-ins, automated watch sessions, and Telegram client jobs — all from one small web panel with a built-in scheduler. This template packages the upstream liveinaus/Bemby project (MIT licensed; UI and docs largely in Chinese) so it runs on Railway with no manual setup: the database lands on a persistent volume, secrets are generated per deploy, and the panel is served over HTTPS on a public domain.

What you get in one click

One bemby service built from the pinned upstream image (liveinaus/bemby:1.0.0) via this repo's Dockerfile — Node.js + Express + Vue SPA + SQLite.
A persistent volume at /app/data holding the SQLite database (accounts, jobs, schedule history, settings) — it survives restarts and redeploys.
A public domain for the panel (the app reads Railway's PORT).
Auto-generated secrets: JWT_SECRET (64 chars) and ADMIN_PASSWORD (24 chars, with ADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD pinned to the same value so the panel forces a password change on first login).

After deploying

Open the panel's public domain.
Log in as admin with the generated ADMIN_PASSWORD from your service's Variables tab.
Set your own password (the panel requires this on first login).
Add your Emby server URL and Emby account credentials in the panel's Accounts section, then create check-in / keep-alive jobs and pick a schedule (set the TZ variable to your IANA timezone — it defaults to UTC).

Terms of service — read this. Bemby is keep-alive tooling: it automates activity (check-ins, watch time, Telegram client actions) on third-party services. Use it only on accounts and servers you are entitled to use, and only where the upstream service's terms permit it — some services prohibit automated sign-ins or simulated watch time. Automating activity may violate those terms, and doing so is entirely at your own risk.

Deploy and Host

Deploying Bemby on Railway provisions a single bemby service from this repo's Dockerfile (thin wrapper around the pinned upstream image liveinaus/bemby:1.0.0, release 2026-08-04), attaches a persistent volume at /app/data for the SQLite database, and exposes the panel on a public Railway domain. Three variables are pre-configured with per-deploy generated values, so the deploy form needs no input: JWT_SECRET (${{secret(64, …)}}), ADMIN_PASSWORD (${{secret(24, …)}}), and ADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD (reference to ADMIN_PASSWORD) — the pairing makes the panel force a password change on first login.

About Hosting

Hosting Bemby yourself means your Emby credentials and job history never leave your own database: everything is stored in SQLite on your private Railway volume at /app/data. The service runs one small Node.js container (512 MB–1 GB RAM is plenty), and Railway's proxy terminates TLS in front of the panel (TRUST_PROXY=1 is baked in). Expected cost is roughly $3–5/month on Railway's usage-based pricing. Upgrades are deliberate: bump the image tag in the Dockerfile and redeploy — data survives on the volume.

Why Deploy

Manually hosting Bemby means wiring a Docker volume, generating a JWT_SECRET, picking an admin password, exposing the panel over TLS, and keeping it all running across restarts. This template does all of it in one click: volume attached, secrets auto-generated per deploy, healthcheck on /api/health, restart-on-failure policy, and the panel published on a public HTTPS domain. You go from zero to a logged-in, working scheduler in about two minutes.

Common Use Cases

Keeping dormant Emby accounts active with scheduled check-ins so servers do not prune them.
Running automated watch/keep-alive sessions for accounts on Emby servers you are entitled to use.
Managing Telegram client jobs from one panel, with logs and history persisted across redeploys.
Self-hosting the panel so credentials stay in your own SQLite database rather than a third party's.

Dependencies for

Bemby is fully self-contained — the only dependency is the service itself.

Deployment Dependencies

bemby service — built from liveinaus/bemby:1.0.0 (pinned; upstream MIT license). Embeds its own Node.js runtime and SQLite storage; no external database or cache is required.
Persistent volume mounted at /app/data for the SQLite database.
Environment: JWT_SECRET, ADMIN_PASSWORD, ADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD (auto-generated by the template); optional TZ (IANA timezone, defaults to UTC) and ADMIN_USERNAME (defaults to admin), which you can add after deploying.
Emby server URL and Emby account credentials are not environment variables — you add them through the panel UI after login, and they stay in the volume-backed database.