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Docker Deployment

Docker Deployment

Deploy Plex using Docker for easy management and updates.

Prerequisites

# Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

# Install Docker Compose
sudo apt install docker-compose-plugin

Basic Docker Run

docker run -d \
  --name plex \
  --network=host \
  -e TZ="America/New_York" \
  -e PLEX_CLAIM="claim-xxxx" \
  -v /path/to/config:/config \
  -v /path/to/transcode:/transcode \
  -v /path/to/media:/data \
  plexinc/pms-docker

Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'

services:
  plex:
    image: plexinc/pms-docker:latest
    container_name: plex
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
      - PLEX_CLAIM=claim-xxxx
      - PLEX_UID=1000
      - PLEX_GID=1000
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./transcode:/transcode
      - /mnt/media/movies:/data/movies
      - /mnt/media/tv:/data/tv

# Start
docker compose up -d

# View logs
docker compose logs -f plex

# Update
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Hardware Transcoding

Intel Quick Sync
NVIDIA

services:
  plex:
    # ... other config ...
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri

Ensure proper permissions:

# Add render group
sudo usermod -aG render $USER
# Note PLEX_UID should have video/render access

services:
  plex:
    # ... other config ...
    runtime: nvidia
    environment:
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
      - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,video,utility

Install nvidia-container-toolkit:

distribution=$(. /etc/os-release;echo $ID$VERSION_ID)
curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/nvidia-docker/gpgkey | sudo apt-key add -
curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/nvidia-docker/$distribution/nvidia-docker.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-docker.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nvidia-container-toolkit
sudo systemctl restart docker

Full Stack Example

Complete media stack with Plex:

version: '3.8'

services:
  plex:
    image: plexinc/pms-docker:latest
    container_name: plex
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
      - PLEX_CLAIM=claim-xxxx
    volumes:
      - ./plex/config:/config
      - ./plex/transcode:/transcode
      - /mnt/media:/data
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri

  tautulli:
    image: tautulli/tautulli:latest
    container_name: tautulli
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8181:8181"
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
    volumes:
      - ./tautulli:/config

  kometa:
    image: kometateam/kometa:latest
    container_name: kometa
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
      - KOMETA_RUN=true
      - KOMETA_TIME=05:00
    volumes:
      - ./kometa:/config

Management Commands

# Start/stop
docker compose up -d
docker compose down

# View logs
docker compose logs -f plex

# Shell access
docker exec -it plex /bin/bash

# Update all
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

# Cleanup
docker system prune -af

Backup

# Backup config
docker compose stop plex
tar -czvf plex-backup.tar.gz ./config
docker compose start plex

Next Steps