Create seperate users on my plex media server

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Hey, I have a question regarding creating other users on my server. I want to be the admin on the account where I have full control of everything of my server, content…etc…

I want to share my server with my family and friends but I want them to have their own accounts so they do not need my log-in information but i want them to only to be able to watch content nothing else. I also want to be able to control them on my server meaning I am able to kick them off my server if need be(delete their account meaning they do not have access to my server anymore)

Is this possible to do and if so do I need a plex pass for this?

Thank you all in advance!

2

You don’t need a Plex Pass for this.

Just tell your friends to go and sign up on plex.tv so they each get an user account of their own.
Then they tell you the email address they used to sign up and you can invite them to your server.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201105738-creating-and-managing-server-shares/ (Make sure to use the button ‘Share Libraries’)

They then need to either acccept or decline the invitation on this page https://app.plex.tv/desktop#!/settings/users-sharing
(each user must go there on his/her own, after logging in with their personal plex user credentials)

You can decide on each of your Plex libraries if you want to share it or not with a particular user.
More granular control is available with a Plex Pass. https://support.plex.tv/articles/204232573-restricting-the-shares/

3

awesome thank you!

4

Before inviting other ppl, I’d test if remote access is working for you.

5

I use it on my phone without any issues without being on the same network. One last question, for multiple streams going at once without buffering is dependent upon my NAS or plex?

I have a mycloud home 3tb 1.4ghz quad-core RealTek processor and 1gb of ram

6

Then you better make sure that ppl don’t need to transcode. i.e. pre-transcode your movies to a rather low bitrate and stereo-only audio in AAC.
Then it is mainly dependent on your internet upstream speed, how many ppl can stream at once.

Don’t expect too much from this small box. They have the ‘Home’ in their name for a reason.

7

will do, thanks for the info. Do you have recommendations on which NAS would be great to go for instead of the one I have currently. I do plan on upgrading in the near future.

8

I’d say only use the NAS for media storage. Then you have a rather large pool of usable and competitively-priced alternatives.
Then get a mini PC (e.g. Intel NUC) with a Core i5 CPU and install the server software onto this.

A NAS with the computing power of this mini PC will be much, much pricier than a regular NAS and the mini PC together. Plus, you are much more flexible because you can upgrade PC and NAS independently of each other.

Or you could add more NAS units later, which would be otherwise more complicated to integrate, if the Plex server was running directly on a NAS.

See https://support.plex.tv/articles/201373793-is-plex-media-server-on-a-nas-right-for-me/

9

interesting. So i could have my NAS just for storage and run the server on a PC which would be on non-stop. But the NAS would be connected via USB to the mini pc right? Currently, my cloud home has the plex app installed so the server is running on the NAS.

10

No, a real NAS is connected by network connection (that’s what the N in NAS stands for). Which means Ethernet (wired!) for both the NAS and the mini PC.
Don’t even consider WiFi for these components.

11

Of course of course haha. But, then my question is how does my plex media server on a mini pc have access to the NAS to show the content on plex if there is no direct connection from the NAS to the pc if they just connected to my router via ethernet

12

That’s how Ethernet works. The basic layout is always a “star”-topology with a central “hub” where all other components are plugged in.
The role of the hub (or “switch” nowadays) is usually your router.

But if it is more convenient, you can easily go and buy an additional Ethernet switch relatively cheap and put this near the NAS and the PC and use only one Ethernet wire to connect the switch to your router. That way you only need two short wires to connect both the NAS and the PC to the switch.
(instead of two long wires to connect the NAS and the PC to the router)

It doesn’t really matter that the data must go back and forth:
from NAS to switch to PC to switch to router to Internet

Today’s standard Ethernet links provide 1000mbps of bandwidth full-duplex – that is enough even for many high-quality videos at once.

(OK, it might get a little cramped if you’re trying to stream several 4K UHD remuxes at the same time. But either your NAS or your internet upstream will probably refuse to cope with that, earlier than the Ethernet connection :wink:

Yes, some people will go crazy and build separate networks for ‘storage’ and ‘streaming’, but that is very much over the top and only makes sense on an “industrial level” [for which Plex is neither intended nor allowed to be used].)

13

awesome thank you for everything. To recap, I can buy a cheap NAS with a lot of storage connect that to my router, connect a mini pc to my router and have the server on my pc and the pc will have access to the NAS and the PC will do the all the trans-coding while the NAS will just be used for storage

14

Precisely.
There are some precautions to make, to make the communication between the NAS and the PC work smoothly:

  • Don’t let the NAS spin down the drives when idle. They use very little power for maintaining their spin and they’ll live longer that way.
  • I assume you’re going to use Windows on the PC. Create identical user name and password on both the PC and the NAS.

See Verbatim Powerbay NAS with Plex media server for more info.

15

awesome, I will take a look at everything. Thanks for the information

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