Get Plex

The Synology DS420+ comes rocking its own app store, allowing you to install a whole host of third-party services, including Plex Media Server. While you can store and enjoy media using Synology's own apps, Plex takes everything to a whole new level, allowing you to sort, correctly tag, and even transcode 4K content. This guide will show you how to quickly get Plex installed and running on the DS420+.

Products used in this guide

Feb 28, 2019 In your Plex app, you have your quality set to 4Mbps. When you connect with the Plex Media Server and request to play that video, your app tells the Server 'I can only handle up to 4Mbps'. The server compares that limitation to the media files and knows that it would need to transcode the media down to make it compatible with the 4Mbps request. 2 days ago  Plex may, but is not obligated to, update the Plex Solution with updates, upgrades, enhancements, improvements, additions, new or incremental features or functionality of and generally made available through the Plex Solution (as determined by Plex in its sole discretion), or modifications that are provided as part of product support and any.

• Your new NAS: Synology DS420+ ($500 at Amazon)
• Unlock transcoding: Plex Pass (From $5/mo. at Plex)

How to install Plex Media Server on the DS420+

1. A Plex Pass, antenna, and tuner are all you need. I've got a Synology NAS, and want to record live TV to it. Do I need the Plex Pass, or can I do this using the free version. Was looking at buying a SiliconDust Homerun device.Thanks. Hi Guys, sorry to resurrect this old thread. Am interested as to how to get 3d movies to.
2. IBM Plex® is our new typeface. It's global, it's versatile, and it's distinctly IBM.

You have the option to install Plex Media Server on Synology NAS using two methods.

Plexus Online

Manual (recommended)

This route is a little more complicated and requires you to download and install new Plex Media Server releases, but it's my preferred method.

1. Download the Plex Server package. (Choose 'Synology' under 'NAS'.)
2. Connect to your Synology NAS.

3. Open up the Package Center.

   © Provided by Windows Central Synology Settings
4. Click on 'Manual Install.'
5. Click 'Browse' and locate the Plex Server download.

6. Click 'Next.'

   © Provided by Windows Central Synology Settings
7. Click 'Yes' on the pop-up.
8. Click 'Apply.'

Automatic

If you'd rather install Plex through Synology's DSM and have the OS allow you to automatically update the package without having to fetch updates yourself, follow these steps instead.

1. Connect to your Synology NAS.
2. Go into Package Center.

3. Click Settings in the top-right corner.

   © Provided by Windows Central Synology Settings
4. Change trust level to 'Synology Inc. and trusted publishers'.
5. Click Certificate tab.

6. Open a new browser tab/window and download the certificate key from Plex.

   © Provided by Windows Central Synology Settings
7. Click Import on the Certificate window.
8. Browse to the downloaded key.
9. Click OK.
10. Back in Package Center, install Plex Media Server

Configuring your new Plex server

All you need to do now is to click on the main menu in the top-left on the DSM interface and choose Plex Server. This will launch a new window with the Plex Server for you to hook up your Plex account, configure the network, search for media, and more. The wizard is straightforward, with only a few options. You will need to create a Plex account to take advantage of synchronization features and the like.

Ultimate Plex beginner's guide

Plex has been around for years, and it's relied upon by many NAS owners to keep their media collections in one place and easy to access from anywhere. You may not have heard of it until now, or perhaps you passed over it while looking at options. We have a guide to walk you through why you should consider using Plex.

When running Plex on your Synology NAS, you will want to select a folder for where Plex can keep track of media files, be it photos, music, or video. The NAS itself comes with some default folders for such media, which can be selected. But you can create new folders in your 'home' folder that can then be accessed through Windows Explorer and other file managers for a more effortless transfer.

Now you can enjoy access to all your content on your smart TV, Xbox One, tablet, smartphone, Windows 10 PC, laptop, and all other devices running the Plex app with adequate access.

Our top equipment picks

To install and configure your very own Plex Media Server on a Synology NAS, you'll need the following equipment.

Mid-tier NAS

Synology DS420+

Four-bay NAS

Synology gave the DS418 a refresh for 2020, throwing in a new faster Intel Celeron J4025 processor and DDR4 RAM. It's a great little server that can even run Plex.

Plex will run just fine on the Synology DS420+. It can even handle 4K transcoding to a degree, so long as no one else is using the NAS at the time. As well as Plex, this NAS can do a whole host of things, from surveillance to cloud storage.

Additional Equipment

While a NAS is mandatory, the Plex Pass and hard drives are optional, but highly recommended additions.

Seagate Ironwolf

Plex Client Download

It's best to use drives designed explicitly for NAS, and the Ironwolf series from Seagate are excellent storage solutions. These drives include AgileArray, which helps improve performance and reliability over traditional desktop drives.

Plex Pass

You can use Plex for free. But to take full advantage of streaming capabilities with transcoding for advanced playback on connected devices and keeping your libraries looking perfect, you'll want to consider the optional Plex Pass.

Plex is a media player system and software suite consisting of many player applications for 10-foot user interfaces and an associated media server that organizes personal media stored on local devices. Integrated Plex Channels provide users with access to a growing number of online content providers such as YouTube, Vimeo, TEDTalks, and CNN among others. Plex also provides integration for cloud services including Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, or Copy.

Plex for Linux is split into a closed-source server Plex Media Server, and an open-source client Plex Home Theater, a fork of the popular Kodi project.

Plex Media Server (PMS)

Installation

Install the plex-media-server^AUR package, or the plex-media-server-plexpass^AUR package if you have a Plex Pass.

Setup

Start/enable the plexmediaserver.service systemd unit.

To begin configuring the Plex Media Server, browse to http://localhost:32400/web/.

To configure Plex Media Server remotely, you can first create an SSH tunnel (setup can only be done from localhost)

ssh ip.address.of.server -L 8888:localhost:32400

and then browse to http://localhost:8888/web/.

or if you are running apache, with a reverse proxy, by adding this configuration in httpd-vhosts.conf

Plugins

PMS can be expanded with additional plugins. For example, PMS can be used as an IPTV client with the IPTV plugin.

Plugins can be installed inside /var/lib/plex/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins.

Plex Live TV and DVR

Plex live TV requires a plexpass.

To enable live TV viewing and DVR support with plex, you must have one of the supported tuners listed on the support page and plex-media-server-plexpass^AUR installed. PMS will automatically recognize any connected tuners.

The plex user needs to be part of the video group in order to access local tuners. This can be done by running usermod -a -G video plex

To enable IPTV support via m3u playlist install xTeVe^AUR.

Security

It is recommended to store your media files outside of your home directory, as making it accessible to PMS would mean lowering its security. Having a separate /media or /mnt/media partition is a good setup for use with PMS.

You can further increase security via systemd, by editingplexmediaserver.service as follows:

Resource Management

Originally, PMS used ulimit to limit its allocated resources, however this is not compatible with running as a regular user. Instead, you can now set a maximum amount of memory via, again, systemd. For example, you can add:

to the file mentioned above.

Network

PMS and its DLNA server require several ports to be open:

• Plex Media Server: TCP 32400
• Plex DLNA Server: TCP 32469, UDP 1900
• Network Discovery: UDP 32410, 32412, 32413, 32414
• Bonjour/Avahi Network Discovery (legacy): UDP 5353

A short example with iptables:

In order to connect to Plex through on a standard http port, this command can be used (for port 8080):

Then you can connect directly to http://yourplexaddress:8080 on this port

Library Updates

Plex Media Server has a setting 'Update my library automatically' which can detect new media files as they are downloaded to your library. But as your library grows, these updates might stop working reliably. To fix, you need to increase the number of files non-root users are allowed to subscribe to via inotify. Create the file /etc/sysctl.d/40-max-user-watches.conf

and run sudo sysctl --system to apply without rebooting. Now plex should see any new files.

Troubleshooting

This article or section needs expansion.

Logs are located in:

In case there are no logs or they are not helpful, you might want to launch PMS manually to get some terminal output:

Plex's WebUI returns 404

There may be a situation when updating Plex's WebUI will return 404 Not Found. To fix this you just need to restartplexmediaservice.service.

Plex Home Theater (PHT)

Previously known as Plex Media Center, Plex Home Theater is the software component used for a long time as the front-end media player for Plex's back-end server component Plex Media Server. This component came from a fork of XBMC Media Center software on May 21, 2008.

Official support for Plex Home Theater (from Plex, Inc.) has been discontinued in favour of Plex Media Player (based on MPV). However, Plex Home Theater was forked and has been developed further by the Open Source community under the name OpenPHT

Installation

Install the openpht^AUR package.

Plex Home Theater can be launched by running plexhometheater.sh from your terminal.

Plex Media Player (PMP)

Plex Media Player is the current release of Plex's media client. It has officially replaced #Plex Home Theater (PHT) (which is still receiving bug fixes) and builds upon previous functionality, such as using mpv. Plex has made PMP available to all users and it has also become compatible with Kodi. Keep in mind, PMP is not open-source (unlike PHT).

Installation

Install the plex-media-player^AUR package.

Kodi and PleXBMC

With the PleXBMC add-on, Kodi can be used as a replacement for PHT.

Install the plex-media-server^AUR package, or the plex-media-server-plexpass^AUR package if you have a Plex Pass.

Setup

Start/enable the plexmediaserver.service systemd unit.

To begin configuring the Plex Media Server, browse to http://localhost:32400/web/.

To configure Plex Media Server remotely, you can first create an SSH tunnel (setup can only be done from localhost)

ssh ip.address.of.server -L 8888:localhost:32400

and then browse to http://localhost:8888/web/.

or if you are running apache, with a reverse proxy, by adding this configuration in httpd-vhosts.conf

Plugins

PMS can be expanded with additional plugins. For example, PMS can be used as an IPTV client with the IPTV plugin.

Plugins can be installed inside /var/lib/plex/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins.

Plex Live TV and DVR

Plex live TV requires a plexpass.

To enable live TV viewing and DVR support with plex, you must have one of the supported tuners listed on the support page and plex-media-server-plexpass^AUR installed. PMS will automatically recognize any connected tuners.

The plex user needs to be part of the video group in order to access local tuners. This can be done by running usermod -a -G video plex

To enable IPTV support via m3u playlist install xTeVe^AUR.

Security

It is recommended to store your media files outside of your home directory, as making it accessible to PMS would mean lowering its security. Having a separate /media or /mnt/media partition is a good setup for use with PMS.

You can further increase security via systemd, by editingplexmediaserver.service as follows:

Resource Management

Originally, PMS used ulimit to limit its allocated resources, however this is not compatible with running as a regular user. Instead, you can now set a maximum amount of memory via, again, systemd. For example, you can add:

to the file mentioned above.

Network

PMS and its DLNA server require several ports to be open:

• Plex Media Server: TCP 32400
• Plex DLNA Server: TCP 32469, UDP 1900
• Network Discovery: UDP 32410, 32412, 32413, 32414
• Bonjour/Avahi Network Discovery (legacy): UDP 5353

A short example with iptables:

In order to connect to Plex through on a standard http port, this command can be used (for port 8080):

Then you can connect directly to http://yourplexaddress:8080 on this port

Library Updates

Plex Media Server has a setting 'Update my library automatically' which can detect new media files as they are downloaded to your library. But as your library grows, these updates might stop working reliably. To fix, you need to increase the number of files non-root users are allowed to subscribe to via inotify. Create the file /etc/sysctl.d/40-max-user-watches.conf

and run sudo sysctl --system to apply without rebooting. Now plex should see any new files.

Troubleshooting

This article or section needs expansion.

Logs are located in:

In case there are no logs or they are not helpful, you might want to launch PMS manually to get some terminal output:

Plex's WebUI returns 404

There may be a situation when updating Plex's WebUI will return 404 Not Found. To fix this you just need to restartplexmediaservice.service.

Plex Home Theater (PHT)

Previously known as Plex Media Center, Plex Home Theater is the software component used for a long time as the front-end media player for Plex's back-end server component Plex Media Server. This component came from a fork of XBMC Media Center software on May 21, 2008.

Official support for Plex Home Theater (from Plex, Inc.) has been discontinued in favour of Plex Media Player (based on MPV). However, Plex Home Theater was forked and has been developed further by the Open Source community under the name OpenPHT

Installation

Install the openpht^AUR package.

Plex Home Theater can be launched by running plexhometheater.sh from your terminal.

Plex Media Player (PMP)

Plex Media Player is the current release of Plex's media client. It has officially replaced #Plex Home Theater (PHT) (which is still receiving bug fixes) and builds upon previous functionality, such as using mpv. Plex has made PMP available to all users and it has also become compatible with Kodi. Keep in mind, PMP is not open-source (unlike PHT).

Installation

Install the plex-media-player^AUR package.

Kodi and PleXBMC

With the PleXBMC add-on, Kodi can be used as a replacement for PHT.

Installation

Install the kodi^{[broken link: replaced by kodi-gbm]} package, then follow the instructions over here.