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John Cuppi about | resume | code | contact Configure Plex Media Server Permissions on Ubuntu Linux Posted on February 22, 2020 When Plex Media Server is installed on Ubuntu, it creates the user and group ‘plex’ that it runs under. The plex server therefore will be unable to access library files within /media/YOURUSERNAME/ folder where drives are typically automatically mounted. So if you are struggling with permission denied errors, or Plex being unable to see folders, this tutorial will show you to fix that. The issue is due to Access Control Lists (ACL) that must be set properly to allow files created by your username to be accessed by the ‘plex’ user. First, let’s add your username to plex. If your username for example is ‘john’ on the system, replace YOURUSERNAME in this command with that. It is case sensitive. sudo usermod -a -G YOURUSERNAME plex To verify that it worked, use the ‘group’ command to view the groups that plex is associated with: groups plex You should see an output from the terminal containing your username it should look like this, indicating that plex now has permissions with your username’s group: plex : plex video YOURUSERNAME Next, we need to add the ‘plex’ user to your user group, and allow it to access /media/YOURUSERNAME, along with permissions for the files. It allows the ‘plex’ group to read (r), write (w), and execute (x) files within the folders and subfolders. ( Warning: this command will set access control permissions for all subfolders and files within /media/YOURUSERNAME. This means that if you have any media like thumb drives, sd cards, or other disks that you don’t want these acl’s being applied to… remove them before running it. If you have disks that you intend for your plex media server to use for its library, GOOD , leave those connected and mounted here!) sudo setfacl -m g:plex:rwx -R /media/YOURUSERNAME To verify that ACLs were set, use this comand on your media folder: sudo getfacl /media/YOURUSERNAME The output should look very similar to the following, and the important line to look for is the group:plex:rwx to verify success in configuration getfacl: # file: media/YOURUSERNAME # owner: root # group: root user::rwx user:YOURUSERNAME:r-x group::- group:plex:rwx mask::rwx other::- You should now be able to add the folders and drives from within /media/YOURUSERNAME/ to your plex libraries, without any permission issues. 1 2 3 … 33 Next » Search Search Recent Posts Configure Plex Media Server Permissions on Ubuntu Linux Blocking Aggressive Chinese Mobile Browser Bots Surface Book 2 i7 15″ Review Migrate from MD5 to bcrypt password hashes without disrupting customers Install Deluge and WebUI to CentOS 7 Recent Comments John on Move MySQL/MariaDB tmpdir to tmpfs/ramdisk danblack on Move MySQL/MariaDB tmpdir to tmpfs/ramdisk John on Blocking WordPress Pingback DDoS attacks with Nginx and Apache Martijn on Blocking WordPress Pingback DDoS attacks with Nginx and Apache Crystal Jones on Blocking WordPress Pingback DDoS attacks with Nginx and Apache Archives February 2020 November 2019 April 2018 February 2017 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 September 2014 August 2014 Categories Apple Browsers Linux Microsoft Misc Mobile Networking Personal PHP Programming SQL Tutorials Uncategorized Windows Meta Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS...