FreeNas Plex jail permission issue

G30G43BR4

Cadet
Joined
Oct 16, 2019
Messages
3
Hello everyone,

i have Plex installed in a jail on my FreeNas 11.2. The owner of my share, where all the media is stored is user "felix" from group "felix". The share permissions are setup as 770. For plex if have a user "plex" of group "plex". The user "plex" also has the auxilary group "felix" so he can access the files on the share.

If i put files on the share now the are owned by felix:felix as intended. However i cant see these files in plex unless i change the ownership to plex:felix . Is something wrong with how i setup the permissions, or this this a plex issue?
 

Randall_64

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
36
Hi G30G43BR4,

Installing FreeNAS 11.3 RC2 (or newer) Plex plugin with static IP address:
These notes are not scientifically proven but reproducible for myself to create a PMS.

At the FreeNAS gui create user ‘plex’ with ID 972 at Primary Group ‘wheel’. For the password you may choose what you want. The Plex plugin allways uses this username and userid in it’s jail. Beside this, you need this user at the next step.

At the Dataset where the media is located, choose edit ACL.
Under File Information choose User -> plex and Group -> wheel
Check Apply permissions recursively
Confirm, Continue, Save.

Install Plex plugin with DHCP settings. Just enter the name of the jail and there you go. Accept DHCP because static IP address is not possible to get it right initially. You can change the IP config later to static IP. The Plex plugin with it’s jail will be started automatically after install.
Stop the Plex jail
Edit the Plex jail

Basic properties:
· Uncheck DHCP Autoconfigure IPv4
· Leave VNet checked
· Leave Berkeley checked
· IP4 interface: leave ----------------
· IP4 address: (free IP address for your jail)
· IP4 netmask: (your netmask)
· Default router: (your default router)
· Leave Autostart checked

Jail properties:
· Check Allow raw sockets

Network properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Custom properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Save settings
Start the jail to check if it’s working

If yes:
Stop the jail again
Create mountpoints
Start the jail

Now you’ve created the dependencies for the Plex web gui. At this gui you can create your media entrances without errors ‘no soup for you’ or ‘no items available.

Regards, R.
 
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gabsd

Dabbler
Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
24
Hi G30G43BR4,

Install FreeNAS 11.3 RC2 (or newer) Plex plugin with static IP address.
These notes are not scientifically proven but reproducible for myself to create a PMS.

Create user ‘plex’ with ID 972 at Primary Group ‘wheel’. The Plex plugin allways uses this username with userid in it’s jail with corresponding userid. You need this user at the next step.

At the Dataset where the media is located, choose edit ACL.
Under File Information choose User -> plex and Group -> wheel
Check Apply permissions recursively
Confirm, Continue, Save.

Install Plex plugin with DHCP settings. Just enter the name of the jail and there you go. Just accept DHCP because static IP address is not possible initially to get it right. You can change the IP config later to static IP. The Plex plugin with it’s jail will be started after install automatically.
Stop the Plex jail
Edit the Plex jail

Basic properties:
· Uncheck DHCP Autoconfigure IPv4
· Leave VNet checked
· LeaveBerkely checked
IP4 interface: leave ----------------
IP4 address: (free IP address for your jail)
IP4 netmask: (your netmask)
Default router: (your default router)
· Leave Autostart checked

Jail properties:
· Check Allow raw sockets

Network properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Custom properties:
· Leave all unchanged
Save settings
Start the jail to check if it’s working

If yes:
Stop the jail again
Create mountpoints
Start the jail

Now you’ve created the dependencies for the Plex web gui. At this gui you can create your media entrances without errors ‘no soup for you’ or ‘no items available.

Regards, R.
Hi Randall,

Thank you so much for your help. I am having the exact same issue as G30G43BR4, and I am trying to follow your instructions. If I understrand correctly, at the begining you say "Install Plex plugin with static IP" and later you say "Install Plex with DHCP settings". Should I install 2 Plex plugins?

Thanks again
 

Randall_64

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
36
Hi Gabsd,

The first line is a kind of title of my notes. You have to create just one Plex plugin.
Starting with DHCP settings and afterwards you can change the jail to fixed.
The last part is not needed but if you like to be in controll of your IP addresses ;-)
 

G30G43BR4

Cadet
Joined
Oct 16, 2019
Messages
3
Thank you for the answer Randall. So you made the plex user the owner of the jail in order to solve the permission issue.

I have solved my issue the other way around. I kept my felix user the owner of the share. But i found out, that i had not created the felix user or group inside the PMS jail. After creating the group felix inside the jail and adding the plex user to that group it worked for me aswell.

So to sum it up:
User "felix" from group "felix" owns the Share and is used to mount the share on all machines in my network. Permissions are set to 770
User "plex" from groups "plex,felix" runs the PMS and has access to the media, as it is in group "felix". Just keep in mind to create the group inside the jail aswell!
 

Randall_64

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
36
Hi G30G43BR4,
Good to hear there are other options to get the PMS you need/want. I understand your felix user and group. About the permissions; did you manage to set them by gui or by cli?
 

gabsd

Dabbler
Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
24
Thank you guys, you rock!
Roockie question now: how do I create the group "felix" ("family" in my case) in the jail?
 

Randall_64

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
36
Hi Gabsd,
You are free to create a Freenas and Plex setup as you want. In may case I would create a separate Dataset 'Family' and make user 'plex' the owner as described at the Dataset part of my notes above.
 

G30G43BR4

Cadet
Joined
Oct 16, 2019
Messages
3
@Randall_64 I changed the permissions for the Share via the FreeNas Web-Gui. I set the permission type to Unix and then i could set them like i wanted them to be.

@gabsd You can add a group by adding a line to the /etc/group file. Afterwards you can add the "plex" user to that group with pw usermod plex -G felix obviously you have to change the groupname accordingly.
 

cullenr2

Cadet
Joined
May 17, 2020
Messages
1
Hi G30G43BR4,

Installing FreeNAS 11.3 RC2 (or newer) Plex plugin with static IP address:
These notes are not scientifically proven but reproducible for myself to create a PMS.

At the FreeNAS gui create user ‘plex’ with ID 972 at Primary Group ‘wheel’. For the password you may choose what you want. The Plex plugin allways uses this username and userid in it’s jail. Beside this, you need this user at the next step.

At the Dataset where the media is located, choose edit ACL.
Under File Information choose User -> plex and Group -> wheel
Check Apply permissions recursively
Confirm, Continue, Save.

Install Plex plugin with DHCP settings. Just enter the name of the jail and there you go. Accept DHCP because static IP address is not possible to get it right initially. You can change the IP config later to static IP. The Plex plugin with it’s jail will be started automatically after install.
Stop the Plex jail
Edit the Plex jail

Basic properties:
· Uncheck DHCP Autoconfigure IPv4
· Leave VNet checked
· Leave Berkeley checked
· IP4 interface: leave ----------------
· IP4 address: (free IP address for your jail)
· IP4 netmask: (your netmask)
· Default router: (your default router)
· Leave Autostart checked

Jail properties:
· Check Allow raw sockets

Network properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Custom properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Save settings
Start the jail to check if it’s working

If yes:
Stop the jail again
Create mountpoints
Start the jail

Now you’ve created the dependencies for the Plex web gui. At this gui you can create your media entrances without errors ‘no soup for you’ or ‘no items available.

Regards, R.
Many thanks for this. After scrambling around for a couple of days going in circles with ID 972, I went back to a completely new install and this worked perfectly.
Version: FreeNAS-11.3-U2
Hi G30G43BR4,

Installing FreeNAS 11.3 RC2 (or newer) Plex plugin with static IP address:
These notes are not scientifically proven but reproducible for myself to create a PMS.

At the FreeNAS gui create user ‘plex’ with ID 972 at Primary Group ‘wheel’. For the password you may choose what you want. The Plex plugin allways uses this username and userid in it’s jail. Beside this, you need this user at the next step.

At the Dataset where the media is located, choose edit ACL.
Under File Information choose User -> plex and Group -> wheel
Check Apply permissions recursively
Confirm, Continue, Save.

Install Plex plugin with DHCP settings. Just enter the name of the jail and there you go. Accept DHCP because static IP address is not possible to get it right initially. You can change the IP config later to static IP. The Plex plugin with it’s jail will be started automatically after install.
Stop the Plex jail
Edit the Plex jail

Basic properties:
· Uncheck DHCP Autoconfigure IPv4
· Leave VNet checked
· Leave Berkeley checked
· IP4 interface: leave ----------------
· IP4 address: (free IP address for your jail)
· IP4 netmask: (your netmask)
· Default router: (your default router)
· Leave Autostart checked

Jail properties:
· Check Allow raw sockets

Network properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Custom properties:
· Leave all unchanged

Save settings
Start the jail to check if it’s working

If yes:
Stop the jail again
Create mountpoints
Start the jail

Now you’ve created the dependencies for the Plex web gui. At this gui you can create your media entrances without errors ‘no soup for you’ or ‘no items available.

Regards, R.
Many thanks Randall, worked perfectly.

Version: FreeNAS-11.3-U2
 

gabsd

Dabbler
Joined
Feb 11, 2014
Messages
24
So I wanted to upgrade the volume holding my jails and therefore had to reinstall Plex. Permissions nightmare again!
I have a dataset "NASmedia" with ACL type = Windows, user=plex, group=family, permissions applied recursively. "NASMedia" has datasets in it, "Music" and "Photos".
In the Plex jail, I added the group "family" and made user "plex" a member of that group.
Plex can see "NASmedia" and the datasets inside it ("Music" and "Photos") but it cannot see anything inside either "Music" or "Photos". It's like the recursive permissions are applied only one level down. What am I doing wrong??

I realize I also rearranged my data - "Music" and "Photos" used to be folders inside "NASmedia", now they are datasets. Is this the problem? Are datasets inside datasets a NO-NO?
 
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