Proxmox | Plex as a VM

A fresh Plex install on Proxmox Ubuntu VM and migrating my existing settings and data.

Proxmox | Plex as a VM
Plex Discover - showing what is available on your subscription services.

I started by creating a new Ubuntu VM in Proxmox for the Plex to be installed.

Creating a new Ubuntu VM

Once you have Ubuntu installed according to your liking proceed to install Plex.

Install Plex

SSH to my new Ubuntu VM installation to get to the terminal.

From the Plex downloads page finding the correct download link and copying that

https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-media-server-new/1.26.2.5797-5bd057d2b/debian/plexmediaserver_1.26.2.5797-5bd057d2b_amd64.deb
# In the Plex server terminal run wget and paste the download link

wget https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-media-server-new/1.26.2.5797-5bd057d2b/debian/plexmediaserver_1.26.2.5797-5bd057d2b_amd64.deb

# once the package is downloaded, install the deb package

sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.26.2.5797-5bd057d2b_amd64.deb

# check the status

systemctl status plexmediaserver

# press q to go back to terminal

# if it is not running, start it with

sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver

Enable Plex repository updates

echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list

curl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | sudo apt-key add -
if you need to install curl run these commands (1) update Ubuntu, (2) install curl, (3) verify the install, rerun the curl command above.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install curl
curl --version

Update Plex and Ubuntu

Run this command to update Ubuntu and Plex Server when needed

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Go to Plex

Test that the install works by opening the browser https://<your-ip>:32400/web

Mounting Shares

If your media is on network shares, like mine is on an NFS share, you want to mount that share or shares.

💡
If you are migrating, you want to re-create the mounts exactly the same as they are on your old installation.

NFS shares

# first create directories for the mount(s)
sudo mkdir -p /<your-path>/nfs/media


# Optiona: install nfs if you do not have it yet
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nfs-common


# mount the share
sudo mount <your-share-ip>:/<share-path> /<your-path>/nfs/media

You also need to add the shares to fstab to mount the shares at boot.

# edit fstab
sudo nano /etc/fstab


# add to the bottom of the file
<your-share-ip>:/<share-path> /<your-path>/nfs/media nfs auto,nofail,noatime,nolock,intr,tcp,actimeo=1800 0 0

# press CTRL + x to save and close

Now if you reboot the share(s) should be mounted automatically on boot.

For some reason I experienced problems with unRAID NFS shares in Plex, so I mounted those using SMB/CIFS.

SMB/CIFS Shares

If you have SMB/CIFS shares

# first create directories for the mount(s)
sudo mkdir -p /<your-path>/smb/media


# Optional: install cifs-tools if you do not have it yet
sudp apt update
sudo apt install cifs-utils


# mount the share | I used <user> = guest
sudo mount -t cifs -o username=<user> //<your-share-ip>/<share-path> /<your-path>/smb/media

Edit fstab to mount the share(s) at boot

# edit fstab
sudo nano /etc/fstab

# add to the bottom of the file
//<your-share-ip>/<share-path> /<your-path>/smb/media cifs <user>,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8 0 0

# press CTRL + x to save and close

Now if you reboot the share(s) should be mounted automatically on boot.

Add library to Plex

To add the share(s) to Plex, you need to create a library and add the share, in that library as a folder. I have all my family photos and videos in two libraries, while the photo library is capable of playing the videos in most cases, it's sometimes easier to watch the videos separately.

Browse for your mounted share
To save some disk space I usually disable the video preview thumbnails

And wait while the library scans the folder for files

Migrating from existing Ubuntu installation

If you have an existing installation you may want to migrate it. I have my previous installation also on an Ubuntu VM, and I wanted to migrate all of the old configurations.

💡
If you have network shares mounted on your old Plex Server, you want to mount them to the new installation prior to the file sync and reboot.
This guide works when migrating from Ubuntu to Ubuntu.

Delete the new Plex Library

Prepare the metadata directory by deleting the contents of the Library, I will copy over the old Library.

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library

Stop Plex service

sudo systemctl stop plexmediaserver

# check status if you wish
systemctl status plexmediaserver

Rsync files from old Plex

Stay in the new install terminal and run rsync (with your root user)

sudo rsync -azvh <your-root-user>@<old server ip address>:/var/lib/plexmediaserver/ /var/lib/plexmediaserver/

Depending on the library size this may take a while ..

When the sync is complete, change the owner of the plexmediaserver directory to plex (this is required).

sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver/

Reboot the server

And open in your browser https://<your-ip>:32400/web


P.S. I really love the new Plex Pass Discover feature, allowing you to create a global watchlist and showing what on your list is available, and on which subscription services.

I love the Plex discovery feature, showing what is available on your subscriptions
Plex shows on which subscriptions the show is available, and you can directly start watching them on those services.