Deploy Plex Media Server through the Linode Marketplace

Plex is a feature-rich streaming platform that lets you organize and stream your own digital video and audio to your devices. This guide shows you how to deploy the Plex Media Server using Linode’s Plex Marketplace App, upload media to your Plex Server, and connect to it from a Plex client application. Your Plex Media Server could benefit from large amounts of disk space, so consider using our Block Storage service with this app.

Why Use Plex Media Server

Owning a Plex Media Server enables you to maintain a personal media library in addition to accessing Plex’s own content, all available to stream to nearly any device. The ability to stream your own media is a unique advantage over other streaming services like Netflix, and comes only at the cost of your Akamai cloud computing services. Additional features, including local downloading, bandwidth limiting, and hardware transcoding are also available through the paid Plex Pass service.

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace lets you easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Suggested minimum plan: 4GB Dedicated CPU or Shared Compute Instance

Plex Options

Limited Sudo User

You need to fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited sudo user, with a strong generated password for your new Compute Instance. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permissions when running commands with the sudo prefix.

• Limited sudo user: Enter your preferred username for the limited user. No Capital Letters, Spaces, or Special Characters.

  Locating The Generated Sudo Password

  A password is generated for the limited user and stored in a .credentials file in their home directory, along with application specific passwords. This can be viewed by running: cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials

  For best results, add an account SSH key for the Cloud Manager user that is deploying the instance, and select that user as an authorized_user in the API or by selecting that option in Cloud Manager. Their SSH pubkey will be assigned to both root and the limited user.

• Disable root access over SSH: To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes. You can still switch to the root user once logged in, and you can also log in as root through Lish.

  Accessing The Instance Without SSH

  If you disable root access for your deployment and do not provide a valid Account SSH Key assigned to the authorized_user, you will need to login as the root user via the Lish console and run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view the generated password for the limited user.

• SOA Email Address: (required): Enter an email address you want to use for generating the SSL certificates and configuring the server and DNS records.

Custom Domain (Optional)

If you wish to automatically configure a custom domain, you first need to configure your domain to use Linode’s name servers. This is typically accomplished directly through your registrar. See Use Linode’s Name Servers with Your Domain. Once that is finished, you can fill out the following fields for the Marketplace App:

• Linode API Token: If you wish to use the Linode’s DNS Manager to manage DNS records for your custom domain, create a Linode API Personal Access Token on your account with Read/Write access to Domains. If this is provided along with the subdomain and domain fields (outlined below), the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. See Get an API Access Token. If you do not provide this field, you need to manually configure your DNS records through your DNS provider and point them to the IP address of the new instance.
• Subdomain: The subdomain you wish to use, such as www for www.example.com.
• Domain: The domain name you wish to use, such as example.com.

Getting Started After Deployment

After your Plex Server has been deployed, you can upload media and configure access to your Plex Server from Plex clients for your media devices.

Before you begin, ensure that you signed up to Plex.

Initial Setup

Administration of your Plex Server is performed from its web interface. Open a web browser and go to the custom domain provided during deployment, or the instance’s default rDNS.

1. Enter a name for your Plex server and select the Allow me to access my media outside my home checkbox. Click NEXT.

   

2. Skip Media Library setup by clicking NEXT. You will Upload Media and Add Media Libraries in the sections below.

   

3. To finish the initial setup, click DONE.

   

4. Click the Settings icon in top-right corner of the Plex web interface.

   

5. On the left side bar, ensure that your new Plex Server is selected and in the Settings section, select Remote Access.

   

6. Select the Manually specify public port checkbox and keep the default value of 32400. Click Retry or Apply. You may need to select Show advanced to see these settings.

   

7. Wait until you see a message stating that your Plex Server is Fully accessible outside your network.

   

You can now access uploaded media and manage your Plex Server from any Plex Client, such as the Plex Web App. If you are unable to reach your Plex Server remotely, you can repeat the steps in this section to re-establish a direct connection for administrative purposes.

(Optional) Connecting a Linode Block Storage Volume

If your media collection is larger than the space available from your Linode plan, Block Storage is a convenient solution. This section outlines the steps for creating and connecting a Block Storage Volume for use with your Plex Server.

1. View, Create, and Delete Block Storage Volumes if you don’t have one already prepared.

2. Establish an SSH connection to your Plex Server Linode as your Limited User.

3. On your Plex Server Linode, create a directory to your Volume’s mountpoint:

   mkdir ~/plex/media/linode-volume
   

4. Mount your Volume path to the mountpoint you have created, substituting $FILE_SYSTEM_PATH with your Volume’s file system path (which you can get in the Cloud Manager’s Volumes dashboard):

   sudo mount $FILE_SYSTEM_PATH ~/plex/media/linode-volume
   

5. Check available disk space:

   df -BG
   

   Filesystem     1G-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
   udev                  1G    0G        1G   0% /dev
   tmpfs                 1G    1G        1G  11% /run
   /dev/sda             49G    3G       45G   5% /
   tmpfs                 1G    0G        1G   0% /dev/shm
   tmpfs                 1G    0G        1G   0% /run/lock
   tmpfs                 1G    0G        1G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
   tmpfs                 1G    0G        1G   0% /run/user/1000
   /dev/sdc             20G    1G       19G   1% /home/username/plex/media/linode-volume

   Notice that there is some overhead with the Volume due to the file system.

6. To ensure that your Volume automatically mounts every time your Linode reboots, run the following command to modify your /etc/fstab file, substituting $FILE_SYSTEM_PATH with your Volume’s file system path (the $HOME environment variable should already be set as your user’s home directory):

   echo "$FILE_SYSTEM_PATH $HOME/plex/media/linode-volume ext4 defaults,noatime,nofail 0 2" | \
   sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
   

7. Restart your Plex Server Docker container:

   docker restart plex
   

Media on your Volume is now accessible through the Plex web interface at the mounted directory on your Linode. Next, follow the instructions below on how to Upload Media to your Volume (use your Volume’s mountpoint instead of creating a new subdirectory), and Add Media Libraries to enable streaming media stored on your Volume.

Uploading Media

Your Plex Server is set up to access media files in the ~/plex/media directory. You have many options for uploading or downloading media to your Plex Server. This section shows you how to organize and upload files to your Plex Server using the scp command.

1. On your Plex Server Linode, create a subdirectory within ~/plex/media to store your media files. Plex recommends organizing media by type, so pick a subdirectory name that matches the type of media you plan to upload. For example, to create a directory to store movie files, enter the following command:

   mkdir ~/plex/media/movies
   

2. From your media workstation, use the scp command to move media to your Plex Server’s media subdirectory, substituting $USERNAME with your Linux Limited User Name, and $IP_ADDRESS with the IP address of your Plex Server Linode:

   scp example_video.mp4 $USERNAME@$IP_ADDRESS:~/plex/media/movies
   

   Depending on the files’ size, this may take a few minutes.

   Note

   There are other ways to upload files to your Plex Server Linode. See our section in Linux System Administration Basics for more information.

Adding Media Libraries

1. Log into a Plex Client, such as the Plex Web App, and on the side bar, click More.

   

2. Hover over your Plex Server’s name in the Plex side bar and click +.

   

3. Select your library type, set a name and language for your media library. Click Next.

   

4. Click Browse for media folder. Go to the directory within /media where your files are stored and click Add.

   

5. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click Add library.

   

6. Pin your new media library to make it accessible from the Plex home screen.

   

7. Repeat the steps in this section to add additional media folders.

You now have all the tools you need to create an online media library and stream it to any device with Plex.

Software Included

The Plex Marketplace App installs the following required software on your Linode:

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Plex Support Articles