Media Server Documentation

Overview

This media server is designed to run a variety of services, including:

• Immich Server: a photo and video sharing platform
• Immich Machine Learning: a machine learning model for image and video processing
• Redis: an in-memory data store
• PostgreSQL: a relational database
• Plex: a media management and streaming platform
• Nginx: a web server and reverse proxy

Services

1. Immich Server

• Container Name: immich_server
• Environment Variables:
  • UPLOAD_LOCATION: the location of media files on the host machine (default: ./immich/library)
  • EXTERNAL_LIB: a library path for external media

2. Immich Machine Learning

• Container Name: immich_machine_learning
• Environment Variables:
  • UPLOAD_LOCATION: the location of media files on the host machine

3. Redis

• Container Name: immich_redis

4. PostgreSQL

• Container Name: immich_postgres
• Environment Variables:
  • POSTGRES_PASSWORD: your database password (default: postgres)
  • POSTGRES_USER: your database username (default: postgres)
  • POSTGRES_DB: your database name (default: immich)

5. Plex

• Container Name: plex
• Environment Variables:
  • PUID: the user ID for Plex to run as
  • PGID: the group ID for Plex to run as
  • TZ: the timezone for Plex to use
  • PLEX_CLAIM_TOKEN: your Plex server claim token (replace with your own token)

6. Nginx

• Container Name: nginx
• Ports:
  • 80:80
  • 443:443
• Nginx reverse proxy is setup to expose the media services outside the home network using the public IP of the host. By default this is setup using http which is insecure.
• There are many ways to setup SSL/https. Place SSL key.pem and cert.pem in ./ssl folder. If you own a custom domain, cloudflare is the simplest and most secure option if setup correctly; even better if a tunnel is used.

Volumes

The following volumes are mounted:

• model-cache: a cache directory for model storage
• /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro: syncs the container's time with the host's time
• /var/lib/postgresql/data: mounts the database storage directory
• ./plexmediaserver: mounts the Plex server application data directory
• ./ssl: mounts the SSL certificate and key files

Running the Media Server

To run the media server, navigate to the media-server directory in your terminal and run the following command:

sudo docker compose up -d

This will start all containers in detached mode. You can view the logs for each container using the following command:

sudo docker compose logs --follow <container_name>

Replace <container_name> with the name of the container you want to view the logs for.

To stop the media server, run the command:

sudo docker compose down

Hardware Acceleration

• The hwaccel.*.yml files contain docker configurations for hardware acceleration using openvino for Intel CPUs, and cuda for nvidia GPUs, for Immich.
• The docker-compose.yml uses openvino by default.
• HW acceleration in Plex can be enabled from the web interface.

Notes

• Copy sample-configs/.env into the root of this project (same location as docker-compose.yml).
• Update all placeholder variables with your own values.
• Make sure to replace postgres with a secure password for PostgreSQL.
• For individual services, refer to their docker-compose documentations for more options.