Can you run multiple Plex Media Servers via Dockers?

[bkastner]

I have Plex running in a docker on UnRAID and have my primary users, and a secondary user for my daughter, and have tagged a bunch of tv/movies for her. I am in the process of setting up a TV for her and an Android box to run Plex, however the app is not as good as some of the others. Because I am logging in as my daughter the media shares show up as Shared Media, and the home page is blank when I log into Plex.

 

Ideally I want to get it to a point that when Plex launches she can see the Movies and TV libraries. My thought was if I configured another Plex Media Server under her name then when she logged into the Plex app it would be her personal libraries - not shared.

 

So, I basically have two questions:

 

1) Has anyone successfully done this? If so, any caveats to consider?

2) Can anyone suggest of a better approach? I am going to be wireless to the device (at least for now), so Plex works way better than Kodi would in this instance.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[UtahDeLorean]

You shouldn't have to set up more then one plex server.

If you have "Certain" shows/movies that you only want her to be able to access you should set up separate folders and/or set up parental guidelines inside of plex.

I have multiple users connecting to my server in and outside of my house and I have just set which folders they can access (IE movies/TV, but not my pictures directory and so forth).

When you connect into your server via a your favorite browser then go oto settings - users from there you can set up restrictions and also which folders they are able to access.

BTW - restrictions might only be able to be used if you have a plex pass - how ever this is well worth getting!

[razmajazz]

Short answer, no, there is no way to run 2 Plex Media Servers using Dockers. Plex Media Server uses port 32400 internally and it is not configurable. Two PMS Dockers will appear to run but even if you map 32400 to a different port in each Docker, it will only be an external port mapping and the internal port mapping will not allow you to access the servers independently. The only way around this limitation is for each PMS instance to have a different IP address so it will have exclusive access to port 32400. Unfortunately, all unRAID Dockers have the same IP address.

 

Fortunately there is an easy workaround. I also run 2 Plex Media Server instances so I setup a Linux VM (I used Mint but most distros will work) for the 2nd PMS. The VM has it's own IP address and it's own exclusive access to port 32400. I'd prefer to run Dockers for both servers, but one PMS Docker and one PMS VM has worked well for me for quite some time.

 

Another option for you to consider is Plex Home. In theory, you could run a single server and use Plex Home settings to fine tune access for any particular user. Since my 2 PMS solution is working fine, I haven't switched over, but administering a single server has advantages.

[Squid]

Short answer, no, there is no way to run 2 Plex Media Servers using Dockers. Plex Media Server uses port 32400 internally and it is not configurable. Two PMS Dockers will appear to run but even if you map 32400 to a different port in each Docker, it will only be an external port mapping and the internal port mapping will not allow you to access the servers independently. The only way around this limitation is for each PMS instance to have a different IP address so it will have exclusive access to port 32400. Unfortunately, all unRAID Dockers have the same IP address.

 

Fortunately there is an easy workaround. I also run 2 Plex Media Server instances so I setup a Linux VM (I used Mint but most distros will work) for the 2nd PMS. The VM has it's own IP address and it's own exclusive access to port 32400. I'd prefer to run Dockers for both servers, but one PMS Docker and one PMS VM has worked well for me for quite some time.

 

Another option for you to consider is Plex Home. In theory, you could run a single server and use Plex Home settings to fine tune access for any particular user. Since my 2 PMS solution is working fine, I haven't switched over, but administering a single server has advantages.

I believe you could do it if you can get Plex to run in bridge mode.  I found a thread here around a month ago that detailed how to do it, but for the life of me I can't find it now.

[bkastner]

Thanks for the replies. The VM option was what I was figured would be the end option.

 

I do have Plex home running (I think - when i click on users I see 'My Home'. Not sure how else to confirm this). The issue is that I am still the primary user, so with my daughters account I can switch to her on the Plex server and it works, but on the Android device her libraries show up as shared, not local. She is only 5, so I want to cut down as many steps as I can - especially since the remote doesn't make it incredibly easy.

 

I will likely just setup another PMS server in a VM and run that way.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

[bigsing]

It sounds like you've created two entirely seperate plex accounts and not truly setup a "plex home" which consists of one plexpass account with other managed users.  All devices authenticate with your plexpass account but the managed users are at another level beneath that.  Most of the plex apps allow for a default user to be selected on each device and you can pin-protect your adult only content.  I've implemented a scheme similar to the plex documentation and it works well for me - https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204234313-Example-Plex-Home-Setup.

 

[bkastner]

It sounds like you've created two entirely seperate plex accounts and not truly setup a "plex home" which consists of one plexpass account with other managed users.  All devices authenticate with your plexpass account but the managed users are at another level beneath that.  Most of the plex apps allow for a default user to be selected on each device and you can pin-protect your adult only content.  I've implemented a scheme similar to the plex documentation and it works well for me - https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204234313-Example-Plex-Home-Setup.

 

I do have Plex Home configured, but maybe don't have the user configured correctly on the Android device. I will have to look into that again and see if this is easier than I was thinking.

 

Thanks for the link and the suggestions.