Mame

MAME is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers.

Image details

Pulls: 28.8k

Architectures: amd64, arm64

Image size: 1.1 GB

User: linuxserver

Created: Jul 07, 2025

Updated: 6 days ago

Status: active

Configuration

Type

Container

Platform

linux

Image

linuxserver/mame:latest

Ports

3000:3000/tcp3001:3001/tcp

Volumes

/config : /srv/lsio/mame/config/mame:ro : /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro

Env vars

PUID=1000PGID=1000TZ=Etc/UTC

Restart

unless-stopped

Template by technorabilia

Notes

Portainer App Templates by Technorabilia, based on data provided by LinuxServer.io.

Ensure to create the following volume directories on the host file system, or modify the paths in the volume mapping section under the advanced options below, as needed.

mkdir -p /srv/lsio/mame/config
mkdir -p /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro

Installation

Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
Log into your Portainer web UI
Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
Select the app you wish to deploy, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json

Show Me

docker run -d --name Mame \
  -p 3000:3000/tcp \
  -p 3001:3001/tcp \
  -e 'PUID=1000' \
  -e 'PGID=1000' \
  -e 'TZ=Etc/UTC' \
  -v /srv/lsio/mame/config:/config \
  -v /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro:/mame:ro \
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  linuxserver/mame:latest

Save this file as compose.yaml and run docker compose up -d
Use this only as a guide.

services:
  mame:
    image: linuxserver/mame:latest
    ports:
      - 3000:3000/tcp
      - 3001:3001/tcp
    volumes:
      - /srv/lsio/mame/config:/config
      - /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro:/mame:ro
    environment:
      PUID: '1000'
      PGID: '1000'
      TZ: Etc/UTC
    restart: unless-stopped

Save this file as mame-stack.yml, then from a manager node, run docker stack deploy -c mame-stack.yml mame

version: '3.8'
services:
  mame:
    image: linuxserver/mame:latest
    ports:
      - 3000:3000/tcp
      - 3001:3001/tcp
    volumes:
      - /srv/lsio/mame/config:/config
      - /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro:/mame:ro
    environment:
      PUID: '1000'
      PGID: '1000'
      TZ: Etc/UTC
    deploy:
      restart_policy:
        condition: any

Save each file below into a folder, then run kubectl apply -f .
Written for k3s, but works on any cluster: bind mounts use hostPath, named volumes get a persistent volume claim, and ports are exposed via a LoadBalancer service.

`mame-deployment.yaml`

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: mame
  labels:
    app: mame
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: mame
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: mame
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: mame
          image: linuxserver/mame:latest
          env:
            - name: PUID
              value: '1000'
            - name: PGID
              value: '1000'
            - name: TZ
              value: Etc/UTC
          ports:
            - containerPort: 3000
              protocol: TCP
            - containerPort: 3001
              protocol: TCP
          volumeMounts:
            - name: mame-data-0
              mountPath: /config
            - name: mame-data-1
              mountPath: /mame:ro
      volumes:
        - name: mame-data-0
          hostPath:
            path: /srv/lsio/mame/config
        - name: mame-data-1
          hostPath:
            path: /srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro

`mame-service.yaml`

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mame
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: mame
  ports:
    - name: 3000-tcp
      port: 3000
      targetPort: 3000
      protocol: TCP
    - name: 3001-tcp
      port: 3001
      targetPort: 3001
      protocol: TCP

Save this file as ~/.config/containers/systemd/mame.container

[Unit]
Description=Mame

[Container]
Image=linuxserver/mame:latest
ContainerName=mame
PublishPort=3000:3000/tcp
PublishPort=3001:3001/tcp
Environment=PUID=1000
Environment=PGID=1000
Environment=TZ=Etc/UTC
Volume=/srv/lsio/mame/config:/config
Volume=/srv/lsio/mame/mame:ro:/mame:ro

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Then reload systemd and start the service:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start mame

For a system-wide service, use /etc/containers/systemd/ and drop --user.

For more installation options, see the Documentation in our GitHub repo

linuxserver/mame

This readme has been truncated from the full version found HERE

MAME is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers.

Application Setup

The application can be accessed at:

https://yourhost:3001/

Usage

docker run -d \
  --name=mame \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Etc/UTC \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -p 3001:3001 \
  -v /path/to/config:/config \
  -v /path/to/mame/assets:/mame:ro \
  --shm-size="1gb" \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/mame:latest

Serve Mame on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxy Domain App port Upstream

Proxying mame.example.com to http://Mame:3000

Add this to your Caddyfile

mame.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://Mame:3000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs Mame
Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:3000 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :3000
Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 3000:3000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:3000. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
Give it a minute after first deploy, Mame can take a while to initialise.
Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 3000

Permission denied on volumes

If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.

Fix the ownership: sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /srv/lsio/mame/config (and the same for the other mapped folders)
Or set the PUID and PGID variables (defaults 1000:1000) to match your own user, found with id $USER

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull linuxserver/mame:latest

"manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses latest, so try pinning a specific version instead.
"toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
"no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

This image supports: amd64, arm64
Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
Get the exit code with docker inspect Mame --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.