Some thoughts for a future functionality that could be considered for delivery after SSL is in place and default in PMS communications.
Remote access to PMS and streaming through the internet to remote locations is not going to be perfect with current technologies and especially if you start wanting to remotely access your PMS from some little village holiday home in the middle of nowhere with poor broadband access. Also even with today's high spec fibre optic broadband services the ISPs cut the upload speed to about a tenth or even less than the actual broadband speed they publicise.
So I am thinking the idea of a remote PMS in a holiday home - synced by Plex from the primary PMS. I do not mind if the sync takes a month to complete - a trickle feed - I do not mind.
There is a feature request here for sync of meta data but my request goes beyond that and is actually for sync of the actual media file structure, My thinking i would start by having a mirror of my data storage for the media setup in the Remote PMS location and then have Plex keep it in step with the primary PMS.
So myPlex service would need to have concept of primary PMS and Secondary PMS and if Sync of Media Library is needed.
myPlex is in the ideal position to do that knowing the real IP Address
This could be offered to PlexPASS users
Once it is in place you can then start thinking of branching out into using this technology in plex for user DR backups. Allowing the user to specify filesystem paths on the Primary PMS machine that Plex should also sync with the remote PMS machine - that would save me having to define private vpn links between two routers and worry about my external ISP IP address changes,
EDIT Of course for this work the remote PMS system needs to operate in a lights-out environment never needing intervention to restart - so presumably should be set never to sleep (until we have a way for Plex to wake it up from sleep)
Some thoughts for a future functionality that could be considered for delivery after SSL is in place and default in PMS communications.
Remote access to PMS and streaming through the internet to remote locations is not going to be perfect with current technologies and especially if you start wanting to remotely access your PMS from some little village holiday home in the middle of nowhere with poor broadband access. Also even with today's high spec fibre optic broadband services the ISPs cut the upload speed to about a tenth or even less than the actual broadband speed they publicise.
So I am thinking the idea of a remote PMS in a holiday home - synced by Plex from the primary PMS. I do not mind if the sync takes a month to complete - a trickle feed - I do not mind.
There is a feature request here for sync of meta data but my request goes beyond that and is actually for sync of the actual media file structure, My thinking i would start by having a mirror of my data storage for the media setup in the Remote PMS location and then have Plex keep it in step with the primary PMS.
So myPlex service would need to have concept of primary PMS and Secondary PMS and if Sync of Media Library is needed.
myPlex is in the ideal position to do that knowing the real IP Address
This could be offered to PlexPASS users
Once it is in place you can then start thinking of branching out into using this technology in plex for user DR backups. Allowing the user to specify filesystem paths on the Primary PMS machine that Plex should also sync with the remote PMS machine - that would save me having to define private vpn links between two routers and worry about my external ISP IP address changes,
EDIT Of course for this work the remote PMS system needs to operate in a lights-out environment never needing intervention to restart - so presumably should be set never to sleep (until we have a way for Plex to wake it up from sleep)
Sounds like you just need to setup a seperate PMS at the 'holiday house' and sync your library via another program if you not looking to use your primary remotely at all (because poor connection etc)
Lookup Bittorrent Sync.
Myself, I have my library stored in the cloud and have several PMS boxes access it from there from different locations.
Sounds like you just need to setup a seperate PMS at the 'holiday house' and sync your library via another program if you not looking to use your primary remotely at all (because poor connection etc)
Lookup Bittorrent Sync.
Myself, I have my library stored in the cloud and have several PMS boxes access it from there from different locations.
I just thought of PMS doing the sync/replication because myPlex should know the external IP Addresses of the PMS machines at all times and would be aware of any changes in the IP Addressed allocated by the ISPs. I did have a private vpn connection some time back through two Netgear routers but I was always worried about one of my ISPs changing the assigned broadband external IP Address. So with myPlex there should be no issues like this as the PMS application would/should know the external IP address and it can be fed to myPlex.
I will look into Bittorrent Sync. I keep away from anything with bittorrent in the name because the term is synonymous with illegal downloads and illegal file sharing. I avoided these when ISPs started to disconnect or penalise users downloading illegal copyrighted material or doing illegal file shares. Please tell me if my understanding of what bittorrents is is wrong
I just thought of PMS doing the sync/replication because myPlex should know the external IP Addresses of the PMS machines at all times and would be aware of any changes in the IP Addressed allocated by the ISPs. I did have a private vpn connection some time back through two Netgear routers but I was always worried about one of my ISPs changing the assigned broadband external IP Address. So with myPlex there should be no issues like this as the PMS application would/should know the external IP address and it can be fed to myPlex.
I will look into Bittorrent Sync. I keep away from anything with bittorrent in the name because the term is synonymous with illegal downloads and illegal file sharing. I avoided these when ISPs started to disconnect or penalise users downloading illegal copyrighted material or doing illegal file shares. Please tell me if my understanding of what bittorrents is is wrong
"Bittorrent is not a crime" has become the new slogan for the creators of Bittorrent because that idea is pretty wide-spread, but the protocol has advanced to be very nice to ISP networks, to the point they (in general) don't crack down on users for just "downloading too much" legally of course, Bittorrent is a transfer protocol foremost. As for dynamic IP issues (changing IP's after a certain time), look into a service that offers a hostname and dynamic DNS support, like no-ip.org and others, although they are harder to find with a self-updating client these days it seems for free, but they are out there.
What you need can be done, even if it maybe is something that doesn't get worked into Plex.
"Bittorrent is not a crime" has become the new slogan for the creators of Bittorrent because that idea is pretty wide-spread, but the protocol has advanced to be very nice to ISP networks, to the point they (in general) don't crack down on users for just "downloading too much" legally of course, Bittorrent is a transfer protocol foremost. As for dynamic IP issues (changing IP's after a certain time), look into a service that offers a hostname and dynamic DNS support, like no-ip.org and others, although they are harder to find with a self-updating client these days it seems for free, but they are out there.
What you need can be done, even if it maybe is something that doesn't get worked into Plex.
Thanks for the clarification on bittorrent. I will look into www.noip.com - They mention free client. I think I used dyndns before
I would also like this feature. Maybe not sync the whole system, but being able to choose a tv series or a collection of movies to sync down would be highly useful. I too have multiple locations that i would like to sync and it makes sense to allow me to manage that through myplex instead of having to set up wonky scripts to sync certain pieces of data.
I would also like this feature. Maybe not sync the whole system, but being able to choose a tv series or a collection of movies to sync down would be highly useful. I too have multiple locations that i would like to sync and it makes sense to allow me to manage that through myplex instead of having to set up wonky scripts to sync certain pieces of data.
Would that not need to be done with Plex Media Server shutdown to avoid file locking and open files - with regards to the Local App Data / Metadata and of course the database. It would be ok for the media files
I have actually now adopted this solution:
Media is replicated to shares on a NAS in the primary location - I used SecondCopy Backup for replication.
A Laptop has an installation of a Plex Media Server used for testing and for use on holidays. This PMS uses the NAS to which the media is replicated to as the source of media files. UNC Paths used with name of NAS as opposed to IP address to allow for different subnets.
Plex Media Server Library on the laptop refreshed and updated before going on holiday
NAS + Laptop taken to holiday home.
Holiday Home has local network consisting a Gigabit router and a Wireless Client Router. Also a Roku with RARflix or official Plex for Roku.
The Client Router uses my iPhone 3G/4G Network through Personal Hotspot as the internet source for any need for internet although I do not expect much needed for Plex Media Server as no new media is added - only needed if network configuration reset for the Roku or if LG TV Plex app needs internet to get started.
Thanks for the clarification on bittorrent. I will look into www.noip.com - They mention free client. I think I used dyndns before
I've used NoIP for a few months now. The client is very low-key. For the free subscription you have to login to their website and authenticate once a month to prove you're a real person, but they send a good email reminder a couple days early.
Would that not need to be done with Plex Media Server shutdown to avoid file locking and open files - with regards to the Local App Data / Metadata and of course the database. It would be ok for the media files
I have actually now adopted this solution:
Media is replicated to shares on a NAS in the primary location - I used SecondCopy Backup for replication.
A Laptop has an installation of a Plex Media Server used for testing and for use on holidays. This PMS uses the NAS to which the media is replicated to as the source of media files. UNC Paths used with name of NAS as opposed to IP address to allow for different subnets.
Plex Media Server Library on the laptop refreshed and updated before going on holiday
NAS + Laptop taken to holiday home.
Holiday Home has local network consisting a Gigabit router and a Wireless Client Router. Also a Roku with RARflix or official Plex for Roku.
The Client Router uses my iPhone 3G/4G Network through Personal Hotspot as the internet source for any need for internet although I do not expect much needed for Plex Media Server as no new media is added - only needed if network configuration reset for the Roku or if LG TV Plex app needs internet to get started.
I would also like to see a metadata sync option and/or the ability to apply the metadata from my main server to my portable server that has identical files in a master and slave/read-only sort of setup. Thanks!
+1, both for a ‘metadata sync’ as well as automated backups. I would absolutely throw my hat into fully distributed PMS servers in that you could define a primary and some number of secondaries that could / would accomplish the following:
(1) enable automatic/manual sync of metadata
(2) enable automatic/manual sync of libraries (which would require ability to set things like scheduled tasks, bandwidth / data limits over WAN, etc per library). Granted you’d have to have some way to ensure all server(s) are owned / logged in as the same plex pass user, probably
(3) enable backups, either on some onsite file share / repository, possibly offsite over VPN / GDrive / etc
(4) enable failover precedence (e.g. if ‘primary’ fails or is offline, client can stream from secondar(ies))
(5) enable automatic ‘best server’ streaming? e.g. if someone on the WAN wants to stream from your library on primary server A, but some algorithm determines better performance from secondary server B, client can automatically stream from B, given applicable server B configuration
(6) enable distributed streaming? Assuming you have 2+ servers defined and some way to ensure checksum for some file to be streamed, given some bandwidth constraints, could a WAN user receive multiple streams from multiple servers to reduce bandwidth use over any single server connection?
