In terms of our Architecture, Roon Server packages provide Roon Server and Output functionality.

A computer being used as a server that does not have a display or keyboard directly attached is called a “headless” server.

Roon Server is a software package that provides a “headless” Roon install; that is, it is a version of Roon that has no user interface. Roon Server also uses less computing resources than the full version of Roon, and is the best choice for installation on headless servers.

Roon Server is used in conjunction with Roon or Roon Remote, both of which provide control functionality.

Roon Server runs on Linux (x64), Mac OS X, and Windows (x86 and x64).

Roon Server on a Windows PC has a "Launch at startup" option, so that Roon Server will start up automatically when the user logs in to Windows.

To avoid the need to manually log into Windows each time the server hardware is rebooted or Windows is restarted, it's a good idea to set up an auto-loginLINK for this account.

macOS has a similar option available to launch Roon Server at login.

On Linux, Roon Server runs as a service. You can manually start/stop it if needed. You can disable the service if (for whatever reason) you do not want it to load at startup and enable/start it manually afterwards.