Install Plex Media Server along side?

sdok · Jun 12, 2021, 5:47 AM

The PC I'm using for PFsense is an i5 quick sync cpu with 24GB RAM. It barely touches the specs. It's also got 2 10Gb nic and a spare 1GB nic

On the other side I have a NAS struggling to keep up with plex transcoding here and there. Direct play works fine.

I'd like to just drop PLEX onto the Pfsense box. Leave all the content on the NAS.

I'm a Debian user so I donno anything about FreeBSD. Is there a guide to getting Plex installed and configured on FreeBSD that someone could point me to?

vjizzle · Jun 12, 2021, 10:21 AM

@sdok Hi. I think installing third party tools and software on your firewall other then what netgate provides is a bad idea for several reason. But you got a pretty beefy server so why don’t you just install a hypervisor like esxi and set up a separate vm for pfsense and one for plex? Plex would be able to use those cpu features perfectly fine when running in a vm.

johnpoz · Jun 12, 2021, 12:50 PM

^ exactly.. If you have a box that is too beefy for just a firewall and you wan to leverage more of its hardware the correct solution would be to use it as a VM host and then run the different applications as VMs.

There are advantages to running pfsense on a VM.. Like easy snapshots of the VM to allow you to play with new versions of pfsense, or even other firewall distros without much effort and easy switch between them. Or rollback if something goes wrong.

There are also drawbacks - if you need to update your vm host software or hardware - your router that gets you on the net is down during.

The setup is a bit more complex as well. But can for sure allow you to leverage all those spare cycles your hardware has for other things. Like plex. Without having to worry about compromising your firewall software with install other software or packages on the actual firewall.

I ran pfsense as just a vm for many years. And was very happy with it.. But now that its on its own appliance. Not sure I would ever go back to that sort of setup. Its nice to mess with my other hardware and always have internet. And routing between my other local networks.

Other option if your hardware is oversized for just router - get some other hardware to use for pfsense. And then leverage your beefy hardware for things better able to leverage its power.

sdok · Jun 12, 2021, 12:48 PM

@vjizzle Yeah I kinda felt that way too but... I already have an even beefier esxi server and I dont like the idea of running pfsense in a VM. it took awhile to get it running nicely with compatible hardware as it is. I'm worried that the 10G nics wont work through esxi. That on top of the fact that I'd have to move the nics into my esxi server and shut down all the vms and reinstall pfsense..... or run two esxi servers. I donno.

While i was waiting for some feedback here I ended up spinning up a VM in my esxi server with debian. I'm just putting plex on it now. shockingly the nvidia 1050 in it passthru'd to linux like it was native. Windows was a nightmare before. so maybe I'll try and run plex in the VM first and see how that goes.

It does seem like a waste of a box on the route now looking back. At the time the box was sitting there doing nothing for two years and with the amount of labs I have going my Asus wasnt keeping up so in walked pfsense and some beefy network hardware behind it.

sdok · Jun 12, 2021, 12:55 PM

@johnpoz yeah I agree. I guess Im just trying to avoid the hassle of swapping my pci NICS into something smaller that may not support them.

I have 10GB NIC from PFsense going to my UI 25 port switch which also has two 10GB nics for my lan and labs. my inbound internet is only 1G up and down so from a WAN side it hits a 1G nic in the server. The 10G and the 1G nics are intel. the on board one was realtek which was a pain to get working initially but even when it was working optimally, I was only getting 60-75% the speed I was getting on my Asus router to the outside. The cheapo intel nic fixed that. The pci ports are now tapped tho. Its a dated but decent motherboard. Anything smaller I'm worried won't hold my two pci cards .. or will and wont perform as well. I guess it all stems from the fact that this box was sitting doing nothing and i was killing the ASUS RT...86? with the amount of load i was giving it so... now my NAS with plex is struggling and im like.. look at all that spec not being used.

I dont realllly wanna go router in VM. I like it being separate and phsyical. I have an Esxi server already thats got a lotta juice. I wanted a hardware router though.

I didnt like the idea of putting a media server on the same box as the router either, but when i started looking into it, I saw some mention of "jails" which sounded like containers almost. seems like more complexity though now.

sdok · Jun 12, 2021, 5:11 PM

just read that plex doesnt support quicksync hardware virtualization through a VM. so putting esxi on the box and VMing pfsense and plex on it. not really gonna work. will have to try and use the passthrough option on the other box

thanks for the replies

johnpoz · Jun 12, 2021, 5:36 PM

@sdok said in Install Plex Media Server along side?:

so putting esxi on the box and VMing pfsense and plex on it

Another way to skin the cat would be to put whatever OS you want to run plex on directly on the hardware and then run pfsense via type 2 hypervisor..

esxi isn't the only way to get a virtual machine ;)

sdok · Jun 12, 2021, 5:46 PM

@johnpoz said in Install Plex Media Server along side?:

@sdok said in Install Plex Media Server along side?:

so putting esxi on the box and VMing pfsense and plex on it

Another way to skin the cat would be to put whatever OS you want to run plex on directly on the hardware and then run pfsense via type 2 hypervisor..

esxi isn't the only way to get a virtual machine ;)

Yea I only really have experience with VMWare. for virtualization. I guess I can throw Ubuntu or Mint on it for a decent GUI and figure out KVM.
What would be the quickest migration method to minimize downtime? I backed up the pfsense config. The hardware will be the same but through the hypervisor, I donno if it will come out 1:1 in the end. So will I end up corrupting the backup on restore, or losing all my rules and configs?

Dont need details. just a rough idea would be helpful.

johnpoz · Jun 12, 2021, 7:31 PM

@sdok said in Install Plex Media Server along side?:

I donno if it will come out 1:1 in the end.

Yeah there for sure would be some config issues with interface names.. em vs vmx, igb, etc. depending on what the hardware is and vm naming, etc.

How complicated is the config - rules, other packages, vlans, etc. etc. A vanilla sort of config can be up in minutes for sure.. Just clean without any restore, etc.

You could spend way more time trying to figure out how to manipulate the xml to work as restore on different vm software vs just doing clean from scratch setup - depending on how far your away from just base install.. wan/lan = internet sort of thing.