MLS Deeplink

Playground Custom Channels
#1

MLSDeeplink – Tiny MLS M3U/XMLTV feeder with Apple TV deep links

I’ve been messing around with MLS on Apple TV and ended up building a little side project called MLSDeeplink.

It does one thing: grabs the MLS schedule from Apple TV MLS package and spits out:

  • mls.m3u – M3U playlist
  • guide.xml – XMLTV guide
  • mls_schedule.json – cleaned-up schedule
  • raw_canvas.json – raw scrape if you want to poke at it

Everything lives in a single Docker container with a built-in daily job and NGINX serving the files from /out.

Repo / Download

Code + Docker setup are here:

https://github.com/kineticman/MLSDeeplink

How it works (quick version)

  1. Container starts up
  2. A daily job runs at whatever time you pick (default 04:17 in your timezone)
  3. It refreshes the MLS schedule and rewrites the M3U/XMLTV
  4. NGINX serves everything over HTTP

So you end up with URLs like:

  • http://myhost.local:8096/mls.m3u
  • http://myhost.local:8096/guide.xml

which you can plug straight into Channels as a custom source (as a Streamlink). The entries deep-link into the Apple TV app.

Quick start (Docker)

git clone https://github.com/kineticman/MLSDeeplink.git
cd MLSDeeplink

# tweak if you want, or just use as-is
export HOST_PORT=8096        # host port
export PORT=8096             # internal NGINX port
export TZ=America/New_York   # timezone for the daily run
export RUN_AT=04:17          # daily scrape time (HH:MM)
export OUTPUT_DIR=/out       # where files are written in the container

docker compose up -d --build

Health check:

curl -sS http://localhost:8096/health && echo

Force a first run instead of waiting for the schedule:

docker exec -it mlsdeeplink bash -lc 'cd /app/scripts && OUTPUT_DIR=/out ./generate.sh && ./validate.sh && ls -l /out'

Using it with Channels

If your box is myhost.local and you kept HOST_PORT=8096:

  • M3U URL: http://myhost.local:8096/mls.m3u
  • XMLTV URL: http://myhost.local:8096/guide.xml

That’s it. If anyone tries it and runs into weird edge cases, I’m happy to tweak it. Not much season left so not a ton of opportunity to test it. Go Crew.

4 Likes
#2

This is cool but I'm getting this error while building locally

Error response from daemon: Head "https://ghcr.io/v2/kineticman/mlsdeeplink/manifests/latest": denied
#3

whoops had the package set as private-- try again pls

#4

And I get a new error

ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/localtime': Permission denied
#5

Is container running regardless of that error?

#6

Nope. It keeps restarting

#7

Try a fresh pull pls. Quick edit to docker entry point.

If u still get restart pls send me log.


docker ps -a --filter name=mls



docker logs mlsappletv | head -n 80
#8

Another new error

/entrypoint.sh: line 19: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf: Permission denied

[entrypoint] ERROR: envsubst failed to render nginx.conf
#9

And...another after an update

[entrypoint] WARNING: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf not writable; using /tmp/nginx.conf instead

2025/11/22 21:16:19 [warn] 8#8: the "user" directive makes sense only if the master process runs with super-user privileges, ignored in /tmp/nginx.conf:1

nginx: the configuration file /tmp/nginx.conf syntax is ok

2025/11/22 21:16:19 [emerg] 8#8: open() "/var/run/nginx.pid" failed (13: Permission denied)

nginx: configuration file /tmp/nginx.conf test failed

[entrypoint] ERROR: nginx config test failed

user  www-data;

worker_processes  auto;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;

pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;

events { worker_connections 1024; }

http {

  include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;

  default_type  application/octet-stream;

  sendfile on;

  keepalive_timeout 65;

  server_tokens off;

  server {

    listen       8096;

    server_name  _;

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log;

    root /out;

    autoindex on;

    location = /health { return 200 'ok'; add_header Content-Type text/plain; }

    location / {

      try_files $uri $uri/ =404;

    }

  }

}
#10

your killin me smalls on here and ESPN!. i actually do appreciate the feedback - its just a hobby for me.

what way are you installing this? porttainer i assume? i guess i should have tested it that way before sending out. I only tested on a git clone method.

try this docker compose for me pls:


services:
  mlsdeeplink:
    image: ghcr.io/kineticman/mlsdeeplink:latest
    container_name: mlsdeeplink

    # Change the left side (8096) if you want a different host port
    ports:
      - "8096:8096"

    environment:
      TZ: "America/New_York"   # or your timezone
      PORT: "8096"             # internal NGINX port (leave as 8096)
      RUN_AT: "04:17"          # daily scrape time (HH:MM in TZ)
      OUTPUT_DIR: "/out"       # where files are written in the container

    volumes:
      # Named volumes (or swap to bind mounts if you prefer)
      - mlsdeeplink_out:/out
      - mlsdeeplink_logs:/logs

    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  mlsdeeplink_out:
  mlsdeeplink_logs:

type or paste code here
1 Like
#11

Hmm...well...for some reason that worked. Yeah...I usually like using portainer to install stuff. Easy to keep an eye on the containers when away

#12

seems like most people on here do. ill update instructions. tnx for trying it out and debugging.

1 Like