How To Install And Set Up The Plex Plugin On OpenMediaVault
OpenMediaVault is the ultimate Linux server application for those that don’t want a fuss. With it, anyone can set up Samba, FTP and even NFS shares from the comfort of a web browser. Thanks to the OMV Extras project, Plex Media Server can now be set up with ease as well. To get Plex working, you need to install the Plex plugin on OpenMediaVault.
Install OMV Extras
Plex Integration into Open Media Vault isn’t possible without the OMV Extras third-party software repository. There are multiple ways to install it. The easiest way to install the Extras repo is from the web interface. Start off by opening a web browser and logging into OMV. Then, open up a second browser tab and download the OMV Extras plugin file.
Note: there are three different downloads, depending on what version of OpenMediaVault you use. In this tutorial, we’ll be working with version 3.0 (the latest stable version).
On the download page, select the link next to “For OMV 3.x (Erasmus)” and download the Debian package file. When you’ve got it downloaded, return to the OMV web interface and click on “Plugins” in the side-bar menu.
To start the installation, click the “upload” button, and browse for openmediavault-omvextrasorg_latest_all3.deb.
Let the package upload. When the process completes, scroll down the plugin list all the way to the bottom and look for “openmediavault-omvextrasorg”. Click the box next to it to enable it.
After selecting it in the checkbox, move back to the top of the plugin list and click on “Install” to install the plugin into OpenMediaVault.
As you click install, OpenMediaVault will ask for a confirmation. The confirmation says “do you really want to install the selected plugin(s)?” Click the “yes” button to continue on.
The OMV installation tool is automated inside of the Web UI, so no passwords are required.
Install OMV Extras Via Terminal
If you’d rather install the OMV Extras plugin in the terminal, there is a script installer. To use it, SSH into your OMV machine and gain root access. From there, run this command:
wget -O - https://omv-extras.org/install | bash
Follow the prompts on screen to fully enable the third-party software repositories.
Install Plex Plugin On OpenMediaVault
The Plex Plugin can only be installed once the OMV Extras software repository is working. However, OMV Extras only makes Plex available, it doesn’t distribute it. To get Plex, re-load the OMV Web UI. After the refresh, look at the side-bar menu for “OMV-Extras”, underneath plugins. Click on it, and look for “Plexmediaserver repo”. This repo is required to enable Plex.
Click the slider button next to “Plexmediaserver” to enable it, then click “Apply” when it appears to refresh OMV’s software sources.
With the repo working, click on “Plugins” in the side-bar menu again, look for “Plex” and click the checkbox next to it to select it. Then scroll up and click “Install” to finally install the Plex plugin on OpenMediaVault.
Configure Plex Plugin
Now that Plex is a part of Open Media Vault, it’ll have a dedicated menu entry. Go to it by looking under “Services” for “Plex Media Server”.
The first step to setting up Plex on OMV is to enable the service in the Web UI. In the Plex Media Center menu, look for “enable” and click the slider next to it to turn it on.
Plex is active on OMV. You’ll now need to specify a hard drive for it to run on. Please take note that OMV is a NAS operating system, and will not let users put share files on the same hard drive that the OS is on. Ensure that you’ve already got a second hard drive (or dedicated data partition set up).
If not, click on “Shared Folders” in the side-bar and set one up manually. Need help? Refer to our guide on the basics of Open Media Vault.
To specify a database volume, click the drop-down menu and select an available hard drive. Done setting up the database? Click “save”.
Setting Up Plex
At this stage in the process, Plex is ready to be configured. Even though it was installed in an unconventional way, Plex on OpenMediaVault follows the same instructions. Open up a web browser and visit the website below.
Note: we’ve covered setting up Plex on Linux in the past on AddictiveTips, so if you’re having trouble, consider checking out our in-depth tutorial on it.
https://server-ip-address:32400/web/index.html
Not sure what the IP address is of your OMV server is? To figure it out, use SSH and log in. It should show a prompt right away listing the IP address. Alternatively, run this command in the console:
ip addr show | grep "inet 192.168"
The ip addr command will reveal your local IP address.
using latest version of OMV and OMV-extras, Plex is no longer in the repo section.
Thank you for doing this extremely helpful guide. Not sure how anyone could manage without these detailed instructions.
Issue I ran into when setting up Plex Libraries is that my Odroid NAS wouldn’t let me navigate directly to target folder (e.g., “Movies”) from /dev/sda1, but there was a mapped/managled version available (e.g., …/NAS1-Movies) in the default file dialog list (which is easy to overlook, since there may be many items listed.