How to install Plex on FreeNAS – The Complete Guide

Welcome back, everyone! As promised, I will show you how to install Plex on FreeNAS. I will cover each and every step, so you can’t get lost. If you have followed the previous tutorial on how to install FreeNAS 11, you should be pretty confident in creating new Datasets and Shares by now.

Plex Media Server is by far the most popular Media Server out there. I have been using it for several years already without any issues. You can access Plex from your mobile devices, PlayStation 4, XBOX, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku, and many other devices.

So without further ado, let’s start with the tutorial.

Step 1 – Creating a new Dataset

First, we are going to create a new Dataset for our Plex Media Files.

Navigate to Storage -> Volumes -> View Volumes and click on your main Volume. Now click on Add Dataset.

Now name it as you will and click on Add Dataset.

Step 2 – Creating a new user for Plex

This step is optional. You can use whatever user you already have. I prefer creating an extra user just for Plex.

Navigate to Account -> Users -> Add User

Give it a Name, check Create a new primary group, enter a Full Name and a Password, and hit create on the bottom. Creating a new group is also optional. I prefer doing it tho.

Step 3 – Changing the Dataset Permissions

Now we need to change the Dataset permissions to our new User. Navigate to Storage -> Volumes -> View Volumes -> Select your volume -> Click on Permissions.

Apply as in the image below.

Step 4 – Creating an SMB Share

Now we got to create a share so that we can drag & drop files into our Plex Library directly from our Windows Computer. Navigate to Sharing -> Windows (SMB) Share -> Add Windows (SMB) Share. For the path choose your plex-share, give it a name, that can be the same as the dataset, and tick Allow Guest Access.

Next, we are going to connect the drive to our Windows Computer. Open an explorer window by pressing Windows Button + E. Click on Map Network Drive on the top. If you don’t have the mapped network drive option, just type the path to your NAS directly in the Breadcrumb Bar. Then right-click the plex-share and select Map Drive.

Adjust as in the image below.

So this is where you want to drop all your Videos, Music, et Cetera in.

Step 5 – Installing & Configuring the Plex Plugin

Navigate to Plugins, select PlexMediaServer, and hit Install.

Now we are going to change the IP Address of the Plex Jail. Navigate to Jails -> Select your plexmediaserver_1 Jail and hit Edit. Adjust the IP to your own preferences.

Next, we are going to assign Storage to our Plex server. Hence we are showing it the path to our plex-share.

The Source is our plex-share. This is where Plex searches for Media Files.

The Destination is the path where Plex stores information about the Media, like Movie Posters, Information, and all kinds of Meta.

For the Destination, click on Browse and choose the Media Folder within Plex.

Reboot your FreeNAS now. Otherwise, the Plex Plugin won’t start.

After the reboot, Navigate back to Plugins -> Installed and switch your Plex Media Server on.

Now navigate to Plugins -> PlexMediaServer and click on “here” to open a browser window and log in to Plex.

Step 6 – Adding a Library to Plex

Go through the initial steps, and rename your server if you want. You need to create an Account with Plex before being able to use it. After you have done all that, it’s time to add Media. This can be a little confusing, but I’ll help you through it.

Let’s say you want to add the Folder Movies from your plex-share.

After clicking on Add Library in Plex, you have to adjust the path like this: \media\Movies

This will add the Movies Folder to your Plex Media Server. Be careful! The input is case-sensitive! If Movies is written with a capital M and you would write \Media\movies, it wouldn’t work.

Conclusion

This is how easy it is to install Plex on FreeNAS. If you are using a pfSense Firewall, you can learn how to enable HTTPS on Plex with it here.

The Plugin is not updated as frequently as it should be. To manually update your Plex Media Server check out this article. Alright, this concludes this tutorial. This should have you covered as we went through each and every step.

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