I have friends interested in using my PLEX Media Server, but I want to manage who has access and when. I’d assume that granting someone remote access would work similarly to gaining remote access myself, but on my end, as the de facto “administrator”, is there a way to see who’s accessing my server at any given time?
Let’s say my media server becomes like every other streaming medium and my friends want to share their access with their friends, can they do that without my discretion, similar to sharing their Netflix account?
If friends want to have me upload and maintain their own files (movies, shows, music, pictures), can I limit access to those files to certain users?
You can’t stop them from passing around their login id & password.
If they abuse the privilege you can always delete them from your server.
You can limit the number of simultaneous remote streams per user (Settings → Network). You could set it to a low number to prevent them using their account a multiple locations at the same time. It is a global setting for all users, including the owner/admin. You cannot set a limit on a per-user basis.
Put their media in their own libraries then only share those libraries with the desired users.
Example: Have a library called “Tom’s Movies” containing his movies. Only share that library with Tom, not Dick or Harry. You, as server owner/admin, can see all media on the server.
Edit: When you setup sharing for a user, you can also grant or exclude access based on a label. For example, label Tom’s movies “Tom’s media,” Dick’s movies “Dick’s media,” etc. When you add Harry to the server, you can let him see Tom’s or Dick’s movies based on the label, not in which library the movies are located.
Also, consider creating a separate Plex test account. Create another account at plex.tv, tied to another e-mail address (snag a free account at Google, Yahoo, etc). This will let you experiment with adding users, sharing libraries, etc.
Note that Plex Web sets cookies. If you’re on a PC/Mac/etc and want one browser window for your regular Plex account and one for your test account, use an incognito/private window for the test account.
