Install Plex Media Server on Ubuntu Systems
Mar 11, 2014 15:38:07 GMT
Post by coder_uk on Mar 11, 2014 15:38:07 GMT
GUIDE By jpettit
First we’ll want to get the .deb package for plex, to do this type the following command:
wget http://downloads.plexapp.com/plex-media-server/0.9.8.6.175-88ffbb2/plexmediaserver_0.9.8.6.175-88ffbb2_i386.deb
After this you can verify the file is located in your working directory with an ls. Next, we’ll want to make sure we have all the dependencies for Plex. Plex requires the avahi-daemon and avahi-utils packages to function, so lets download those next:
sudo apt-get install -y avahi-daemon avahi-utils
Now that we have the dependencies installed we can install Plex its self:
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_0.9.8.6.175-88ffbb2_i386.deb
At this point Plex should be installed and running. Now there is one caveat, if you are installing this to a VPS like I am, you’ll be blacklisted by default, so if you attempt to access the web interface you’ll be turned away saying you are not authorized to access this server. The workaround is to explicitly whitelist your current IP address, to do this you can navigate to:
/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
Note you may want to take advantage of the autocomplete feature here (tab) since the spacing can be kind of cumbersome. Once there, go ahead and open Preferences.xml in nano. There should be two lines, a short one and a really long one, we’ll be modify the longer one. After the <Preferences tag you can add in the following:
allowedNetworks="your.ip.address.here/your.subnet.mask.here"
So for example, at the time of writing I was using a 50.166.0.0/16 IP address, I put in the following:
allowedNetworks="50.166.0.0/255.255.0.0"
Once you have added this, you can save by pressing Control X and then pressing y. You’ll want to restart Plex for the changes to take affect, this can be done by running:
sudo service plexmediaserver restart
At this point you can now navigate to the web interface by browsing:
https://your.ip.address.here:32443/manage/index.html
Please note that I use the secured version of Plex and I highly recommend you do the same, Plex will also listen on 32400 for HTTP traffic if you fancy a lack of security!
From here on out its pretty much a wizard-esque setup, the wizard will guide you through naming your server, setting up media files and the like.
There you have it, you now have a Plex Media Server running on your Ubuntu box! If you have any questions about the process, don’t hesitate to put it in the comments!