Plex Media Server Setup Guide with Raspberry Pi

Do you wish to have your own Netflix (but better) with all of your favorite movies, shows, videos, music, photos, podcasts, and all personal media in one place, ready to stream and serve you anytime? Well, let me introduce you to Plex

Objective

• Install new OS to Raspberry Pi
• Install new package
• Have your personal media server 24/7
• Stream anywhere anytime
• Manage your device/server anywhere anytime

Materials

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (Minimum)
• MicroSD card (4/8/16/32 GB)
• Preferred size of External Hard Drive (1TB/2TB/4TB)
• USB-A to micro usb cable and a power adapter
• Powered USB hub

Tools

• Active internet connection
• Windows PC
• Monitor with HDMI input
• HDMI cable
• Mouse and keyboard

PREREQUISITE • Installing (Fresh) Raspbian

1. [Windows] Format your microSD card, preferrably from SDCard.org
2. [Windows] Choose FAT32 for its file system as written in the docs
3. [WIndows] Download Raspbian with NOOBS
4. [RasPi] Insert microSD card to RasPi, HDMI to monitor, everything else you need, then plug-in the power last
5. [RasPi] Choose Raspbian as your OS and English for your language

Note

Some users had problems with wlan0 once Raspbian is installed. To avoid this problem, try setting up the wifi under network near the top of the window before installing

PART A [RasPi] • Plex Media Server

1. Update and upgrade your packages

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt update
   sudo apt upgrade
   

2. Install the package HTTPS transport so you can access metadata and packages over HTTPS and use the next command line

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install apt-transport-https
   

3. Adding dev2day repository for the plexmediaserver package by first adding the GPG key

   	
   
   		
   
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   wget -O - https://dev2day.de/pms/dev2day-pms.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
   

4. Edit the package list using echo and tee command

   	
   
   		
   
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   echo "deb https://dev2day.de/pms/ jessie main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pms.list
   

5. Update your packages just to make sure

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt update
   

6. Installing Plex Media Server from dev2day repository

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install -t jessie plexmediaserver
   

7. Change plexmediaserver.prev so that it runs under pi user

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo nano /etc/default/plexmediaserver.prev
   

8. Save and exit with Ctrl + X → y → Enter

9. Look for this piece of code PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_USER=plex and change plex to pi

10. Restart Plex service using the following command

    	
    
    		
    
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    sudo service plexmediaserver restart
    

PART B [RasPi] • Static IP

1. Find your IP from this command using hostname -I

2. Copy and paste the IP as ip=YOUR_IP in /boot/cmdline.txt

3. Save and exit with Ctrl + X → y → Enter

4. Because we’re running JESSIE, we need to configure dhcpcd.conf too using sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf

5. Add these lines of code to the bottom of the file

   	
   
   		
   
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   # change eth0 to wlan0 or add it if you use wifi
   interface eth0
   static ip_address=192.168.xxx.xxx/24
   static routers=192.168.x.x
   static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8
   
   # Code below is to disable automatic configuration of empty option
   # Add this if you are experiencing trouble with your network connection endlessly configuring
   denyinterfaces eth0
   
   # Code below is to disable IPv6 so you'll only have your IPv4 as the static IP
   noipv6
   

6. Restart your RasPi to reconfigure everything sudo reboot

PART C [RealVNC] • Virtual Network Computing

Even if you’re going to work with a monitor, it is convenient to have a VNC connection just because you would save a lot of hassle in the long run. But, it is definitely a must for users who are planning to go full headless

1. Install RealVNC server

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install real-vnc-server
   

2. Install RealVNC viewer if you’re planning to connect to other device from this device

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install real-vnc-viewer
   

3. Setting raspi-config to allow VNC connection

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo raspi-config
   

4. Navigate to Interfacing Options and enable the VNC server

   

   

   

5. Open RealVNC from the top right icon and log in with your account

6. Now, every time you want to connect to any of your device from any device, just log in and click on your device

   Note - Default RasPi username is pi with raspberry as the password

TRANSPORTING • Personal Media

Tip - Formatting your external drives beforehand and giving each of them a unique name will make it easier by not having you to go through lots of unnecessary mounting process, I recommend these so it’s just ‘Plug and Play’

1. Add your media folders to your external hard drive, I suggest structuring your folders like so

   	
   
   		
   
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   E:.
   ├───Movies
   │   ├───Animated
   │   │   ├───AnimatedMovie A
   │   │   └───AnimatedMovie B
   │   └───Live Action
   │       ├───Movie A
   │       └───Movie B
   ├───TV Shows
   │   ├───Show A
   │   └───Show B
   ├───Videos
   │   ├───Video A
   │   └───Video B
   ├───Music
   │   ├───MusicAlbum A
   │   └───MusicAlbum B
   └───Photos
       ├───PhotoAlbum A
       └───PhotoAlbum B
   

   Tip - Structuring your media will help Plex scan and detect your media files better and save the hassle of manually correcting it later

2. Once done, eject your drive and plug it in to your RasPi

   Important - Because we’re using external drives to store our media, we’ll want to use a powered USB hub to prevent your RasPi from being underpowered and slowing down its performance (which is slow enough compared to actual NAS) and/or even risk getting shut down and bricked

   Note - If you don’t have a powered USB hub yet and are only using 1 external drive, you might get away by plugging it directly in to the RasPi. But, try to get one as soon as possible

3. You can check your Plex on your RasPi at 192.168.xxx.xxx:32400 or localhost:32400 will do just fine too

4. Click the Add Library under Libraries, configure General and Advanced to your likings, and browse for a folder on your external drive at /media/pi/external_drive

Troubleshooting

1. Your external drive might not be compatible to read with NTFS as its file system and a storage of over 2GB as we’ve previously added a lot of our personal media from Windows to the drive.

   To resolve this problem, we could install NTFS-3G. It is an open source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read-write support

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install ntfs-3g
   

   If you’re using an external storage but with exFAT as its file system and are having problems. You could install exfat-fuse and exfat-utils

   	
   
   		
   
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   sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
   

   Important - Do not use exFAT for your external hard drive if you are using that to keep your Plex Metadata, which needs symlinks support and that is not provided by exFAT

2. You might not be able to access your drive(s).

   To resolve this problem, we could do a chmod 777 to make the files readable, writable, and executable by everyone with sudo chmod 777 /media/pi

SERVER MANAGEMENT • Dataplicity

An alternative to manage your mini RasPi home server is to use Dataplicity. Usually, you don’t need to have access to the mouse movement or even the display for a Linux-based OS, you only need to have access to the Terminal. It is that powerful that you could basically do anything from it, and that is where Dataplicity comes. It gives you full access to just the Terminal without adding any additional load from having to display any visuals or waiting for the mouse to slowly go where we wanted to. It is the (perfect for me) lightweight and hassle-free replacement for SSH (which I don’t use and prefer this one).

1. Go to Dataplicity’s main page and enter your email

2. You will then be given a curl code to be executed from your RasPi first, example code below

   	
   
   		
   
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   curl https://www.dataplicity.com/abcdefg0.py | sudo python
   

3. You should be done with your RasPi. To access your device, go back to Dataplicity and select your device

4. You could see that a huge Terminal has showed up for you to use and everything you enter there will be executed in your device

5. You should notice that it starts with something like dataplicity@your-device:/$, it means you’re on Dataplicity user and are most likely not a superuser. You could change user with su pi

6. Enter your pi password

7. Use Ctrl + Shift + V to paste something from Windows

8. You could now manage your server anywhere and anytime just by visiting their website, logging in, and use the cheat sheet I’ve provided down below to execute the essentials Tip - If you’re having trouble connecting, try enabling SSH from raspi-config the same way you enabled VNC before

CHEATSHEET • Server Management Commands

	

		

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sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

sudo service plexmediaserver stop
sudo service plexmediaserver start
sudo service plexmediaserver restart

sudo reboot # Reboot Raspi
sudo tuptime # Shows RasPi uptime
sudo shutdown -h now # Shutdown now

sudo apt install plexmediaserver-install # Update Plex

iwconfig # Wifi Strength