A simple way to run a plex media server in Docker on the Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.
NOTE: The Pi 1 is NOT supported.
- Plex media server
- Samba server
The easiest way to get started is to install Hypriot OS onto your SD card because it comes with docker & docker-compose pre-installed. It's also possible to use the ARM version of Arch Linux but you'll need to install and configure these packages yourself.
Assuming Hypriot OS, boot up the Pi, identify it on your network and SSH in with the following credentials: User: pi / password: raspberry
Next, clone this repo and bring the services up using docker-compose:
git clone https://github.com/greensheep/plex-server-docker-rpi.git
cd plex-server-docker-rpi
docker-compose up -d
Open the Plex web admin at http://{ip address of Pi}:32400/web to configure your server.
A samba share called plex-data is also made available. It's currently unsecured so if you don't want to use it just start the plex service:
docker-compose up -d plex
Otherwise, connect as a guest to: smb://{ip address of Pi}/plex-data.
The plex server container uses docker volumes for the config and library directories. These are mapped to /home/pi/plex/{config,data}.
If you want to store your library on an external USB hard drive, mount your device into the /home/pi/plex/data directory. For example:
mount /dev/sda1 /home/pi/plex/data
If you already started your server, run:
docker restart plex samba-server
The Pi isn't powerful enough for transcoding but if you have media that will direct play on your client it works great! I've tested this on the Pi 2 (Hypriot) and 3 (Arch).
If you experience problems with media that should direct play/stream to your client, and you mounted an external drive to /home/pi/plex/data, try setting the "Transcoder temporary directory" to a path on the mounted /data volume. For example, do:
mkdir /home/pi/plex/data/transcoder
Then add /data/transcoder to Settings -> Server -> Transcoder -> Transcoder temporary directory in the Plex admin.
Why? Most of the time your SD card will be realtively small 16/32Gb and can quickly run out of space. According to this forum post, the lack of available space can cause transcoder problems.
To build the images yourself, use the docker-compose.dev.yml file:
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml build
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d