SmokeScreen

Host your Plex media with rclone on cloud storage with automated uploading and local cleanup of new media on Ubuntu Linux. May work on other flavors, but could require modifications.

Thank You

Reddit users /u/gesis and /u/ryanm91

Pre-requisites

This project relies on:

• rclone 1.39+
• unionfs-fuse sudo apt-get install unionfs-fuse
• bc sudo apt-get install bc
• Plex Media Server
• Sonarr, Radarr, SABnzbd, Torrent Clients (optional)

IMPORTANT: Plex must run as the SAME USER as the scripts. On Ubuntu, this is done by:

At the command line:
sudo service plexmediaserver stop
sudo chown -R myuser:myuser /var/lib/plexmediaserver
sudo systemctl edit plexmediaserver

This is the content to be placed in the editor
[Service]
User=myuser
Group=myuser

Then:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo service plexmediaserver start

Installation

clone the repo then

• move smokescreen.conf to ~/.config/SmokeScreen/smokescreen.conf
• move the scripts to ~/bin/
• make sure all the scripts are executable

Default Configuration Variables

The default configuration creates folders and mount points in your user's home directory. This may not be acceptable for your configuration, so change them to a more suitable location. All steps in this README refer to the $variable name and not the ~/path to avoid confusion.

NOTE: $cloudsubdir MUST be set to a value. Setting it to an empty string so that media is placed at the very top level of your cloud storage is unsupported, and could have odd side-effects. Some of the provided scripts assume that this variable has a value, and as such may not work properly if omitted.

Required rclone Remotes

Create a remote in rclone that points at the TOP LEVEL of your cloud storage provider (Do not enter a subfolder). This remote will be the $primaryremote in the configuration. Then create another remote of type 'cache' that points at the first remote. This will be the $cacheremote configuration option. Set the configuration option $cloudsubdir to a descriptive name. $cloudsubdir will be created at the top level of your cloud storage automatically when update.cloud is run the first time, and media will appear in subfolders beneath it. When this remote is mounted, you will see a subfolder named $cloudsubdir at $clouddir.

If you need assistance creating remotes in rclone, visit their site.

The default configuration options are $primaryremote to be called GSUITE, $cacheremote to be called GSUITE-CACHE and $clouddir to be Media.

Cloud Storage Setup

There is a checking script included that looks for a specific file on cloud storage. Set in the configuration as $checkfilename, when Cloud Storage is mounted you should see this file at $mediadir/$checkfilename. Use rclone to upload a file of this name to your cloud storage $cloudsubdir folder. Example:

touch ~/google-check
rclone move ~/google-check GSUITE:Media

Now mount the system by running the check.mount script. You should see your cloud storage mounted at $clouddir and you should see a union of $localmedia and $clouddir/$cloudsubdir at $mediadir. If you don't, stop here and resolve it before continuing.

Plex Media Server Configuration

The newest (1.39 at time of this writing) version of rclone now includes caching. While this means you can allow Plex to automatically scan your media libraries to keep them up to date, the scan.media script is still available so that you can schedule scans. Likewise, the media.upgrade script can be used by Sonarr/Radarr to scan newly downloaded episodes and movies in to Plex. These scripts are more reliable when using Plex with unionfs and cloud storage. They also allow scanning of large music libraries on systems where Plex's scanner fails to properly do so.

Plex Scanning (Recommended Setup)

• Settings -> Library -> Disable Update my library automatically
• Settings -> Library -> Disable Run a partial scan when changes are detected
• Settings -> Library -> Disable Include music libraries in automatic updates
• Settings -> Library -> Disable Update my library periodically
• Settings -> Scheduled Tasks -> Disable Update all libraries during maintenance
• Settings -> Library -> Disable Empty trash automatically after every scan (Prevents media getting removed if your mount fails)
• Settings -> Library -> Disable Allow media deletion (Media deletion in Plex when using unionfs is painful)
• Settings -> Scheduled Tasks -> Disable Upgrade media analysis during maintenance (Optional)
• Settings -> Scheduled Tasks -> Disable Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance (Optional)

Plex Media Libraries

Media libraries in Plex must be configured:

• Plex should look at $plex_shows_folder for TV Series
• Plex should look at $plex_movie_folder for Movies
• Plex should look at $plex_music_folder for Music

If you've created new libraries or modified the paths in existing libraries in Plex, cancel the scans that Plex initiates automatically. We will rescan everything once we're done configuring the other software.

Sonarr and Radarr Configuration

Sonarr and Radarr should be configured to use $mediadir/$media_shows and $mediadir/$media_movie as the root folders for all series/movies. The included script media.upgrade should be used by Sonarr and Radarr to automatically remove old versions of files when Sonarr/Radarr import something that already exists and also initiate a Plex scan of newly added media. If you do not use this script, you will need to manually clean up unionfs metadata files and old versions of shows/movies from your cloud storage.

Media that these tools download will follow the path:

• Download client (SAB, Deluge, etc) downloads to temp directory
• Sonarr/Radarr "import" the file to $mediadir
• update.cloud will then upload it to cloud storage

If you are NOT using Sonarr or Radarr, manually add episodes and movies to $localmedia/$media_shows for TV and $localmedia/$media_movie for movies. Be sure that media manually placed here follows Plex's media naming expectations.

Initial scan

Once all the software is configured correctly, run scan.media 1 to force a complete scan of all media. Be prepared to wait, as this will take a while. It might be a good idea to run the scan in a screen so that if your connection is interrupted the scan won't stop: screen /bin/bash ~/bin/scan.media 1. Do not continue until this scan is complete.

Automatic Processing

CRON is used to automatically mount the drives, upload content to cloud storage, scan new media in to Plex, and remove local copies of media.

Add the following to your user's crontab:

@hourly       /home/USER/bin/update.cloud >> /home/USER/logs/update.cloud.log 2>&1
0    1  * * * /home/USER/bin/scan.media   >> /home/USER/logs/scan.media.log 2>&1
0    23 * * * /home/USER/bin/nuke.local   >> /home/USER/logs/nuke.local.log 2>&1
*/5  *  * * * /home/USER/bin/check.mount  >> /home/USER/logs/check.mount.log 2>&1

If you prefer to allow Plex to handle all media scanning, do not add the line for scan.media to your CRON.

A Note About Music

Since cloud storage-hosted music doesn't work well with Plex, but we may have disabled automatic scanning, newly added music might not appear automatically in Plex. The configuration variables $plex_music_folder and $plex_music_category are available so that scan.media will scan newly added music. Leave these variables blank if you do not use Plex for music, or if you have Plex set to automatically scan your music folder. Note, the scan.media script seems more reliable on larger music libraries, and using it is recommended over Plex's internal scanning regardless.

DO NOT store your music at $localmedia as it will get uploaded to cloud storage and deleted locally. Also, do not store your music in any of the other folders configured for FUSE mounts ($clouddir, $mediadir, etc). Use a local folder instead.