Learn Linux – and setup a Media Server

Setup Infrastructure

Channel 9 Video

Deploy out one (1) resource group with the following:

• 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 VM
• 1 Ubuntu 16.04 VM
• 1 NSG
• 2 NICs
• 2 Public IPs
• 1 Virtual Network
• 2 Storage Accounts

Open the following ports in your NSG:

• 80 – HTTP
• 22 – SSH
• 3389 – RDP
• 8181 – PyPlex Web App
• 32400 – Plex Media Server

Objective – Setup a Plex Media Server and Python Web App with a CIFS mount to pull log data

Bonus – Configure vhosts conf file and use a reverse proxy

Setup Windows Server 2012 R2

Install the following software:

• Plex Media Server (free) - https://www.plex.tv/downloads/ - Will require restart (Hint: From run: 'shutdown /r /t 00' will remotely restart

Configure Plex Media Server from Windows VM

• Web browser should automatically open to http://127.0.0.1:32400/web/index.html#!/setup/
• Create a new account (it's free)
• You can close the window for Plex Pass – not necessary to use Plex
• Add Libraries (predefined ones are music and photos) I used Home Videos for the demo and pointed it to my local Videos folder - C:\Users\demo\Videos
• Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Logs\ and share the folder

Setup Ubuntu 16.04 LAMP Stack

Install the following packages

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server mysql-client php7.0-mysql php7.0-curl php7.0-json php7.0-cgi php7.0 libapache2-mod-php7.0 php-cli

Verify successful installation on Linux

• Verify Apache by going to IP Address / DNS from web browser
• Verify MySql install by typing: sudo systemctl status mysql
• Verify PHP 7 version install by typing: php -v

Setup PyPlex Web App from Linux VM

• cd /opt
• sudo git clone https://github.com/JonnyWong16/plexpy.git
• cd plexpy
• sudo python PlexPy.py
• PlexPy will be loaded in your browser or listening @ http://localhost:8181
• To start PlexPy on startup, refer to Install as a daemon

(OPTIONAL) - Daemon instructions below:

• sudo adduser --system --no-create-home plexpy
• sudo chown plexpy:nogroup -R /opt/plexpy/
• sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JonnyWong16/plexpy/master/init-scripts/init.ubuntu.systemd && mv init.ubuntu.systemd plexpy.service
• sudo mv plexpy.service /lib/systemd/system/plexpy.service
• systemctl daemon-reload
• systemctl enable plexpy.service
• sudo service plexpy start

Setup PyPlex on Linux VM to connect to Windows Plex

• From a web browser, http://ip-address-of-linux-vm:8181 type your Plex user account and password created when Plex was setup on Windows
• Under Plex Media Server (below Plex Authentication) type the IP address or hostname of your Windows Plex Server – hit verify to confirm it found it
• Hit next after the above steps are completed and leave all other settings as is. (Next will need to be clicked 3-4 times)
• To allow logging – From PyPlex web browser go to Settings –> Plex Media Server and in the field for Logs enter the mount path for the cifs mount in the following section. * In the demo I used /opt/plexpy/MediaServer

Windows shares mounted on Linux – Samba

Linux Ubuntu 16.04 Instructions

• sudo apt-get install cifs-utils (may already be installed)

• sudo update-rc.d -f umountnfs.sh remove

• sudo update-rc.d umountnfs.sh stop 15 0 6 . * Update the unmount order to prevent CIFS from hanging during shutdown.

• Create a .smbcredentials file under /root/ * (tip: touch /root/.smbcredentials then use a text editor to edit) * sudo su (elevate cli session to root)

• sudo chown root .smbcredentials

• sudo chmod 600 .smbcredentials

Example .smbcredentials file: username=user-account-name password=super-secret-password

• mkdir /opt/plexpy/MediaServer
• sudo vim /etc/fstab add new line: //local-ip-address/Logs /opt/plexpy/MediaServer cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials
• sudo mount -a -v (mounts all entries in /etc/fstab and enables verbose mode) * cifs is type of mount (another is smbfs) * yellow highlight is location on local linux system where mount point will be made

vhosts.conf and ProxyPass

• cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
• touch sites.conf
• sudo vim sites.conf
• Paste in text from sites.conf.example (in GitHub repo) and modify accordingly
• sudo a2enmod proxy
• sudo a2enmod proxy_http
• sudo a2enmod rewrite
• sudo a2ensite sites.conf
• sudo service apache2 reload
• sudo systemctl restart apache2

Setup Second Site for vhosts demo

• sudo vim /var/www/html/info.php Add this text and save the file:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

• sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
• sudo systemctl restart apache2
• Go to DNS name of second site Expectation:
• Should see apache landing page (index.html in /var/www/html)
• Go to http://dns-name-of-2nd-site/info.php and should see PHP landing page