Configure Plex Media Server with Object Storage

Plex Overview

Plex is client-server media player system comprising two main components:

The Plex Server application, that is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and even including some NAS devices.
Plex clients that can be either a web based interface, an application on smart TVs, streaming boxes or other third party applications.

Requirements:
You have an account and are logged into console.scaleway.com
You have configured your SSH Key
You have an Object Storage bucket
You have sudo privileges or access to the root user.

Creating a Bucket

1 . Log in to the Scaleway Console

2 . Click Storage from the left side menu. The Storage page lists all your buckets. The list will be empty if you have not created any bucket yet.

3 . Click Create a Bucket to create a bucket that will store your objects

Note: In this example, the bucket is named plexmediaserver. Bucket names are unique and can only exist once.

Installing the Required Software

1 . Update the apt packet manager and the software already installed on the system:

apt update && apt-upgrade -y

2 . Add the Plex repository

Add Plex’s GPG key to the apt sources keychain and create a new file containing an entry to the Plex repository by running the following commands:

curl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | apt-key add -
echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list

3 . Install Plex and s3fs

Now, as the Plex repository is enabled, update the apt package list and install the latest version of Plex and s3fs, which is needed to mount the object storage bucket.

apt update && apt install -y plexmediaserver s3fs

Configuring s3fs

1 . Create the folder into which the bucket will be mounted:

mkdir -p /mnt/media

2 . Enter your S3 credentials in the password file and set owner-only permissions on it:

echo <ACCESS_KEY>:<SECRET_KEY> >  ~/.passwd-s3fs
chmod 600  ~/.passwd-s3fs

3 . Modify /etc/fuse.conf to allow other users access, by uncommenting user_allow_other.

4 . Mount the bucket in the local filesystem:

s3fs plexmediaserver /mnt/media -o allow_other -o umask=0002 -o passwd_file=${HOME}/.passwd-s3fs -o url=https://s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud

5 . (Optional) To mount the bucket automatically during boot, create a systemd script, called /etc/systemd/user/s3fs.service:

[Unit]
Description=S3FS mounts
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/bin/s3fs plexmediaserver /mnt/media -o allow_other -o umask=0002 -o passwd_file=${HOME}/.passwd-s3fs -o url=https://s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud
ExecStop=/bin/fusermount -u /mnt/media

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable the script by running the following commands:

systemctl --user enable s3fs
systemctl --user start s3fs

If you ever want to disable the automatic mounting, run the following command:

systemctl --user stop s3fs

Configuring Plex

1 . Check that Plex is running before continuing:

systemctl status plexmediaserver

The output should look like this example:

● plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server for Linux
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service; enabled; vendor
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2018-09-23 14:16:52 UTC; 1min 53s ago
  Process: 882 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c /usr/bin/test -d "${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APP
 Main PID: 889 (sh)
 [...]

If the status is active (running) everything is fine.

2 . The initial setup of Plex has to be done via an SSH tunnel, as the configuration is only allowed from localhost:

On Linux or MacOS computers, you can create the tunnel with the following command:
```
ssh root@plex.server.ip -L 8888:localhost:32400
```
On Windows computers, you can create the tunnel by using PuttY:
- Open PuTTY, enter your server IP address in the hostname and SSH port. Or, if you already have your server session setup and saved, just load the existing session.
- Go to Connection > SSH > Tunnels.
- Fill in Source port as 8888 and Destination as localhost:32400.
- Click on the Add button.
- Navigate back to the session homepage now and click the Save button, then Open to connect to the server.

Open a web browser on your local computer and navigate to http://localhost:8888/web. You will be presented with the following login screen:

Plex Login

Note: In order to use Plex, you must create an account.

3 . Once you are logged in, you will be automatically redirected to the setup of the server:

Plex Setup

Enter the required parameters and click Next to complete the setup.

Note: Make sure the Checkbox Allow me to access my media outside my home is ticked to access your media files from everywhere.

4 . Create a new Media Gallery by clicking on + in the menu on the left. When asked for the media folder, select /mnt/media: