---
title: Run Plex in Docker
description: Play back all your media on all your devices
---

# Plex in Docker

[Plex](https://www.plex.tv/) is a client-server media player system and software suite comprising two main components (a media server and client applications)

![Plex Screenshot](../images/plex.jpg)

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## Preparation

### Setup data locations

We'll need a directories to bind-mount into our container for Plex to store its library, so create /var/data/plex:

```bash
mkdir /var/data/plex
```

### Prepare environment

Create plex.env, and populate with the following variables. Set PUID and GUID to the UID and GID of the user who owns your media files, on the local filesystem

```yaml
EDGE=1
VERSION=latest
PUID=42
PGID=42
```

### Setup Docker Swarm

Create a docker swarm config file in docker-compose syntax (v3), something like this:

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```yaml
version: "3.0"

services:
  plex:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/plex
    env_file: plex.env
    volumes:
      - /var/data/config/plex:/config
      - /var/data/media:/media
    deploy:
      labels:
        # traefik common
        - traefik.enable=true
        - traefik.docker.network=traefik_public

        # traefikv1
        - traefik.frontend.rule=Host:plex.example.com
        - traefik.port=32400     

        # traefikv2
        - "traefik.http.routers.plex.rule=Host(`plex.example.com`)"
        - "traefik.http.services.plex.loadbalancer.server.port=32400"
        - "traefik.enable=true"
    networks:
        - traefik_public
        - internal
    ports:
      - 32469:32469
      - 32400:32400
      - 32401:32401
      - 3005:3005
      - 8324:8324
      - 1900:1900/udp
      - 32410:32410/udp
      - 32412:32412/udp
      - 32413:32413/udp
      - 32414:32414/udp

networks:
  traefik_public:
    external: true
  internal:
    driver: overlay
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 172.16.16.0/24
```

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## Serving

### Launch Plex stack

Launch the Plex stack by running ```docker stack deploy plex -c <path -to-docker-compose.yml>```

Log into your new instance at https://**YOUR-FQDN** (You'll need to setup a plex.tv login for remote access / discovery to work from certain clients)

[^1]: Plex uses port 32400 for remote access, using your plex.tv user/password to authenticate you. The inclusion of the traefik proxy in this recipe is simply to allow you to use the web client (as opposed to a client app) by connecting directly to your instance, as opposed to browsing your media via <https://plex.tv/web>
[^2]: Got an NVIDIA GPU? See [this blog post](https://www.funkypenguin.co.nz/note/gpu-transcoding-with-emby-plex-using-docker-nvidia/) re how to use your GPU to transcode your media!

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