Plex Media Server - Linux installation packaging update - Issues

ChuckPa · January 20, 2020, 3:12am

Server Version #: 1.18.5 and above

This thread serves to focus and coordinate the resolution of any issues which arise with the newly released universal packaging for Debian-based Linux systems.

The announcement thread can be found Plex Media Server - Linux Packaging Update

When reporting issues, please provide:

Installation environment including whether: Native package, Docker, or Linux Container.
Details of problem encountered.
Copy/paste of console output (best) or screenshot.

Note: This thread is being opened in advance of the actual release of by Engineering. Please hold all questions & comments until after the binaries are released later today (Monday, 20 Jan 2020)

annunaki · January 20, 2020, 11:35pm

First update to fail for CHOWN plex issues. My plexmediaserver files are located on an NTFS drive which doesn’t support chown -R plex. All previous updates worked just fine.

Native package install - Linux (Debian Stretch)
Moved Plex files many months ago to an external NTFS drive due to drive space requirements

#dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb 
(Reading database ... 89948 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb ...
Removed /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/plexmediaserver.service.
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation.  
PlexMediaServer install: Error:  "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support" is not owned by "plex", UID: 114.  Found "root" UID: 0 .  Please correct before continuing.  
dpkg: error processing archive plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb (--install):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/plexmediaserver.service → /lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.24-11+deb9u4) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb

ChuckPa · January 20, 2020, 11:51pm

It’s not failing for chown. It’s telling you PMS doesn’t own the Application Support directory which has always been a requirement.

You’ll also see where the mount is telling you sees ROOT as the UID owning the data while Plex’s UID as that which is in charge. root is the default for the NTFS-3G driver but it can be overridden in /etc/fstab.

Is there an override in use here?

amnacog · January 21, 2020, 2:20pm

Also first time to fail the dpkg -i :

2020-01-21 14:17:14 (99.5 MB/s) - 'plex.deb' saved [87109412/87109412]

Selecting previously unselected package plexmediaserver.
(Reading database ... 11218 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack plex.deb ...
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation.
PlexMediaServer install: ERROR:  Plex Media Server can only be installed on 'init' or 'systemd' based systems.
PlexMediaServer install:         Your system has sh but minimally required files are missing.
dpkg: error processing archive plex.deb (--install):
 new plexmediaserver package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.29-9) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 plex.deb

Running from a docker-compose with a debian base image

so yes I don’t have systemv/systemd because of docker, is that now a requirement ?

  # Make sure we have either init or systemd  (Upstart will redirect to systemd so no consideration being given)
  if [ $(($Systemd + $Init)) -eq 0 ]; then
    Output both "ERROR:  Plex Media Server can only be installed on 'init' or 'systemd' based systems."
    Output user "        Your system has $(cat /proc/1/comm) but minimally required files are missing."
    exit 1
  fi

Kinda fun when the changelog says that it only adds support to SysVinit

ChuckPa · January 21, 2020, 3:18pm

@amnacog

I look for docker packages from binhex and linuxserver.io.
It looks like I missed something there.

Can you help me understand what I did miss?
I presume you are updating an existing container?

amnacog · January 21, 2020, 3:59pm

@ChuckPa
Is your deb build working on lsio plex image ?

ChuckPa · January 21, 2020, 4:14pm

Yes. I specifically test for that during pre-install.
I look to see if the base is linuxserver.io and, knowing it’s already working, let it continue.

  # Looks like Docker  (s6-svscan = Plex/Linuxserver.io;  tini = binhex)
  if [ "$(cat /proc/1/comm)" = "s6-svscan" ] || [ "$(cat /proc/1/comm)" = "tini" ]; then
    Output both "Docker detected. Preinstallation validation not required."
    exit 0
  fi

zoltair · January 21, 2020, 4:42pm

This update is failing and disabling my systemd service in the process.

I’m running this on Ubuntu 18.04 on a bare-metal server.

# dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb
(Reading database ... 246805 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack plexmediaserver_1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9_amd64.deb ...
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation.
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation complete.
Unpacking plexmediaserver (1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9) over (1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9) ...
Setting up plexmediaserver (1.18.5.2260-056ab4be9) ...
PlexMediaServer install:
PlexMediaServer install: Now installing based on:
PlexMediaServer install:   Process Control:    Systemd
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex User:          plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex Group:         plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Video Group:        video
PlexMediaServer install:   Metadata Dir:       /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support
PlexMediaServer install:   Temp Directory:     /var/lib/plexmediaserver/tmp_transcoding
PlexMediaServer install:   Lang Encoding:      en_US.UTF-8
PlexMediaServer install:   Config file used:   /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d/override.conf
PlexMediaServer install:   HW transcoding:     Found
PlexMediaServer install:
PlexMediaServer install: Completing final configuration.
useradd: user 'plex' already exists
dpkg: error processing package plexmediaserver (--install):
 installed plexmediaserver package post-installation script subprocess  returned error exit status 9
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-11ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-1ubuntu3.18.04.2) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.60ubuntu1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 plexmediaserver

The primary problem is that the installation is trying to add a user that already exists.

The installation appears to be running a simple grep command against /etc/passwd to check if the plex user exists. That doesn’t work on my system. On my system, the plex user and plex group are both provided by an external FreeIPA server.

To account for a case such as this, I suggest using the getent passwd plex command instead. That returns more reliable results than grep, as does getent group plex.

ChuckPa · January 21, 2020, 5:00pm

That’s one we didn’t consider.
I do have a followup question to this:

When you perform
getent passwd plex to verify a user does exist, does it return the UID/GID in normal getent style ?

zoltair · January 21, 2020, 5:11pm

Yes. It looks just like a normal user on the system.

# getent passwd plex
plex:*:749600008:749600008:Plex Service:/var/lib/plexmediaserver:/bin/bash
# getent group plex
plex:*:749600008:

ChuckPa · January 21, 2020, 5:12pm

SWEET! I will make these changes right away.

With luck, I can implement, rerun the packaging, and push to PlexPass beta today.

annunaki · January 21, 2020, 9:37pm

Nothing is overridden that I’m aware of. This is simply the first update that failed and the output shows why. Previous updates have never reported back this way … they just worked.

annunaki · January 21, 2020, 9:40pm

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=897fd7ba-c42d-42e4-90a8-ebd6b01d4445 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=1d209f60-ecfb-424a-bbfb-6ea7ea089428 none            swap    sw              0       0
tmpfs           /tmp            tmpfs   defaults        0       0
# >>> [openmediavault]
/dev/disk/by-label/4T /srv/dev-disk-by-label-4T ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/EFI /srv/dev-disk-by-label-EFI vfat defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/10T_2 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-10T_2 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/10T_1 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-10T_1 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/2T_1 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-2T_1 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/2T_2 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-2T_2 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/10T_3 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-10T_3 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/Elements /srv/dev-disk-by-label-Elements ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
/dev/disk/by-label/10T_4 /srv/dev-disk-by-label-10T_4 ntfs defaults,nofail 0 2
# <<< [openmediavault]

ChuckPa · January 21, 2020, 10:00pm

Thanks for letting me know about OMV . That does change things a bit but, as I said,

It’s not failing with a chown
It is attempting to verify the UID plex runs as is the owner of the PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR

I asked if an override was in use because the User and Group PMS can be started as can be changed with a systemd override

To resolve this:

Does Plex Media Server run as User plex or does it run as another user ID ?
If it runs as another user id, I need to understand how that is set in OMV so I can accommodate it. There has never been official support for OMV before. If I can make it possible now, now is the time.

ChuckPa · January 22, 2020, 2:08am

@amnacog

We have chatted here about how to deal with cat /proc/1/comm returning sh (a home-rolled container)

There’s nothing blocking cat /proc/1/comm returning sh
I will add that, with other changes I have, and included in the next PlexPass beta update

@zoltair
I’ve made the changes. Those will be part of the next update to the PlexPass beta.

@annunaki
I’m trying to setup an OMV environment now so I can ensure installing on OMV is possible. I would like to work with you further on this.

Regarding NTFS, in particular UID checking, the ERROR will be backed down to a WARNING and installation will continue at the user’s risk. I will make this change.

All the above changes will be available together in the next update (as soon as reviewed and approved) in PlexPass beta.

I will announce here when they are available.

SegfaultEx · January 22, 2020, 10:08pm

This seems to be the case for any external auth.
My server is using an active directory user and fails validation.

PlexMediaServer install: Error: Unknown username 'ADplex' used in /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d/override.conf.

ChuckPa · January 22, 2020, 10:26pm

@SegfaultEx

If you can confirm for me that getent passwd ADplex resolves correctly then I have already fixed it. Those changes have been submitted for an update build.

SegfaultEx · January 23, 2020, 1:14am

Yep getent passwd ADplex works. Glad to hear the fix has already been submitted!

ChuckPa · January 23, 2020, 1:37am

In complete candor, I looked at it for months, several of us did too. It was examined by more people than I know / can count and it was still missed.

I’m sure the mental logic was

“grep” ? Yeah, that’ll work.
“getent” ? That’s ok too.

At no point did any of us ask “Why getent for groups but not passwd?”

Rigear · January 23, 2020, 6:25am

Should also add dumb-init to this list

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