This will be a running account of my installation, configuration, quirk documention, and usage notes for the Plex Media Server that I am installing on one of my personal servers. This server is going to replace a ps3mediaserver that I have been running for several years now, but due to a lack of development and a number of issues involving the upgrades of the support binaries, no longer functions as needed.
The server I am installing this on is a CentOS 7 1U server that I picked up specifically for this task from Penn State’s Salvage shop.
Installation
I choose to use the x86_64 rpm from the developer option rather the building from source and creating my own rpm for my local software repo. I choose to go this route, as time is somewhat in short supply at the moment and having never run this program before I do not want to spend to much time working out all the kinks of the install on top of building the software and rpms.
Installation was simple, using CentOS’s built in yum program.
Configuration
First item was to add the Plex server ports to my firewallD program by creating a service file in /etc/firewalld/services named plexmediaserver.xml .
Fill the plexmediaserver.xml with the description, ports and protocols needed for Plex to operate as shown below:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding =”utf-8″?>
<service version=”1.0″>
<short> plexmediaserver</short>
<description>Plex TV Media Server</description>
<port port=”1900″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”5353″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”32400″ protocol=”tcp”/>
<port port=”32410″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”32412″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”32413″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”32414″ protocol=”udp”/>
<port port=”32469″ protocol=”tcp”/>
</service>
Save the file and then execute the command to add it to firewalld as follows:
firewall–cmd —permanent —zone=public —add–service=plexmediaserver
Second item was to enable the sever to start on boot using the systemd service.
sudo systemctl enable plexmediaserver.service
sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver.service
Follow the Plex Media Server configuration guide from the Plex website at this point to configure the server for your use.
Installing custom plugins
Webtools v2.0 and the Unoffical App Store
Installing WebTools is a manual process. Go to the Github page and download the latest tools WebTools.bundle.zip . Transfer this file to your Plex server machine and uncompress it. Verify the file that is extracted end in .bundle . Locate where your plugins directory is, mine was at /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/ . Copy the WebTools.bundle into the Plug-ins directory. Open the port :33400 on your firewall. Connect to the media server on port:33400 and login using your plex.tv credentials. If the server doesn’t connect try restarting the media server.