Getting Plex Up and Running with a Windows Share on Ubuntu

Okay, so my Portainer container was up… First port of call, get Plex up! My Plex media is actually stored on a Windows share. Here’s how I got it working.

As a media enthusiast, I rely on Plex to stream my favorite shows and movies to my devices. However, my media library is stored on a Windows share, which can make it a bit tricky to access from my Ubuntu server. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps I took to get Plex up and running with my Windows share.

Step 1: Install Required Packages

Before I could access the Windows share, I needed to install the required packages on my Ubuntu server. Specifically, I needed to install cifs-utils and smbclient.

Here are the commands I used to install the packages:

apt-get install cifs-utils
sudo apt-get install smbclient

These packages provide the necessary tools for mounting CIFS shares and accessing Windows shares from Ubuntu.

Step 2: Accessing the Windows Share

With the packages installed, I was able to access the Windows share using the smbclient command. Here’s the command I used:

smbclient //j-server/e -U Administrator

This command connects to the e share on the j-server server using the Administrator account. I was prompted to enter the password, and once I did, I was able to access the share.

Step 3: Permanently Mapping the Share

While the smbclient command worked, I wanted to permanently map the share to my Ubuntu server. This would allow me to access the share without having to use the smbclient command every time.

To do this, I used the mount command with the cifs filesystem type. Here’s the command I used:

sudo mount -t cifs //j-server/e /mnt/j-server/e -o username=<YourShareUserName>,password=<YourSharePassword>

This command mounts the e share on the j-server server to the /mnt/j-server/e directory on my Ubuntu server. I replaced Chooks12$ with the actual password for the Administrator account.

Step 4: Configuring Plex

With the share mapped, I was able to configure Plex to access my media library. I simply pointed Plex to the /mnt/j-server/e directory, and it was able to scan my media library and start streaming my content.

Conclusion

Getting Plex up and running with a Windows share on Ubuntu was a bit of a challenge, but with the right commands and configuration, I was able to get it working. By following these steps, you should be able to access your Windows share from your Ubuntu server and stream your media content using Plex.

I hope this article helps! Let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like more information on configuring Plex or accessing Windows shares on Ubuntu.