How to install Plex Media Server Linux

What is Plex?

Plex Media Server is a great application for sharing your personal media at home and over the internet. I use it to stream my music over the internet to my phone when I am commuting to work, but it can also be used to stream movies, TV, photos to mention just a few.

Is Plex free?

Yes, the Plex media server is completely free, but there is no free support from Plex apart from the very helpful teams at Plex.tv forums. Plex does offer a Plex Pass which is a premium add-on that adds a few extra features. The best of these features is the ability to download, perfect for going on holiday or if you are commuting. There are also a number of really good search indexes available in Premium which make your music collection come alive, it’s not too different from the Spotify interface, but it uses all of your content.

Plex Media Server was originally released in 2008 for the Apple Mac, but since then it is fair to say that it is available for almost every device going. Not just Windows and Linux, but Storage devices, network appliances, and so on.

According to Wikipedia, Plex Media Server is available for:

• Windows 7 and later, OS X Mavericks and later, Linux, FreeBSD 11.2 and later, Nvidia Shield TV, Synology Disk Manager 5 and later, Netgear, QNAP, Unraid, Drobo, ASUStor, Thecus, Seagate, Western Digital.
• Player:
  Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Amazon Fire tablet , Amazon Fire TV,, Android 5.0 and later, Android Auto, Android TV, Apple TV 4th Gen, Apple TV 4K, Chromecast, iOS 9.3 or later, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Roku, Sonos, Oculus Go, webOS, Tizen, Windows 7 and later, Xbox 360, Xbox One, macOS High Sierra and later.

How to install Plex Media Server on CentOS (7+)

This is a guide on how to install the Linux version of Plex Media Server on CentOS and Red Hat (7+) versions. Plex is not officially supported on older versions of Linux, with the CentOS 6 version officially being discontinued in Summer 2020.

• Plex is not available by default on Centos Repos
• I will be using Centos 8.3 for this demo
• I will be using the root account

First update your CentOS Operating System

dnf update -y

Next add the Plex Media Service repository

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/plex.repo

Input the following into the file

[Plex]
name=Plex
baseurl=https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/rpm/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgkey=https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key
gpgcheck=1

Save and Close, then install plex

dnf install plexmediaserver -y

Next step Plex to start at system boot up

systemctl enable plexmediaserver
systemctl start plexmediaserver

Plex Firewall Ports

Next, if you have the firewall enabled you will need to allow plex through firewall by adding these exceptions

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32400/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32469/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8324/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=3005/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32412/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32413/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32414/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=32410/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=1900/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=5353/udp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent

Now reload the firewall to pick up the changes

firewall-cmd --reload

If you have SELinux enabled you will need to allow Plex to run

setsebool httpd_can_network_connect on -P

What is the plex media server IP address?

You can log onto the Plex Server to complete the installation. The default address is your local IP address using port 32400. You can also use localhost from the same computer, or you can

http://localhost:32400/web/index.html

You can also download the App for your mobile phone from the Andriod & Apples stores