UnicornLoadBalancer

This software is a part of UnicornTranscoder project, it's the LoadBalancer that will catch Plex requests and send them to a UnicornTranscoder.

UnicornTranscoder Project

• UnicornTranscoder
• UnicornLoadBalancer
• UnicornFFMPEG

Dependencies

• Plex Media Server
• NodeJS
• RedisCache (Optionnal)
• Postgresql (Optionnal)

Setup

1. Installation

• Clone the repository
• Install with npm install
• Setup some environnement variables to configure the UnicornLoadBlancer

Name	Description	Type	Default
SERVER_HOST	Host to access to the UnicornLoadBalancer	string	127.0.0.1
SERVER_PORT	Port used by the UnicornLoadBalancer	int	3001
SERVER_PUBLIC	Public url where the UnicornLoadBalancer can be called, with a slash at the end	string	http://127.0.0.1:3001/
PLEX_HOST	Host to access to Plex	string	127.0.0.1
PLEX_PORT	Port used by Plex	int	32400
PLEX_PATH_USR	The Plex's path	string	/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/
PLEX_PATH_SESSIONS	The path where Plex store sessions (to grab external subtitles)	string	/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sessions
DATABASE_MODE	Kind of database to use with Plex, can be sqlite or postgresql	string	sqlite
DATABASE_SQLITE_PATH	The path of the Plex database	string	/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db
DATABASE_POSTGRESQL_HOST	Host of the Postgresql server	string
DATABASE_POSTGRESQL_DATABASE	Name of the postgresql database	string
DATABASE_POSTGRESQL_USER	User used by the Postgresql database	string
DATABASE_POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD	Password used by the Postgresql database	string	sqlite
DATABASE_POSTGRESQL_PORT	Port used by the Postgresql database	int	5432
REDIS_HOST	The host of the redis database	string undefined	undefined
REDIS_PORT	Port used by Redis	int	6379
REDIS_PASSWORD	The password of the redis database	string
REDIS_DB	The index of the redis database	int	0
CUSTOM_SCORES_TIMEOUT	Seconds to consider a not-pinged server as unavailable	int	10
CUSTOM_IMAGE_RESIZER	Enable or disable the custom (Unicorn) image resizer (most efficient than Plex one)	bool	false
CUSTOM_IMAGE_PROXY	Use a proxy to convert images, with a slash at the end	string
CUSTOM_DOWNLOAD_FORWARD	Enable or disable 302 for download links and direct play, if enabled, transcoders need to have access to media files	bool	false
CUSTOM_SERVERS_LIST	Transcoder servers set by default, with a slash at the end, separate servers with a comma	string array	[]

• Configure Plex Media Server access address
• In Settings -> Server -> Network
• Set Custom server access URLs to the address to access the UnicornLoadBalancer
• Run with npm start

2. Notes

All requests to the Plex Media Server should pass through the UnicornLoadBalancer, if someone reach the server directly he will not be able to start a stream, since FFMPEG binary has been replaced. To solve this problem it is recomended to configure an iptable rule to drop direct access from port 32400.
It is also recomended to setup a nginx reverse proxy in front of the UnicornLoadBalancer to setup a SSL certificate.

#Example iptable: Deny 32400 port
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 32400 -i [your-network-interface] -j DROP

After a 32400 port drop, you must define your server url and the port used (443 or 80) in Plex settings, if it's not configured you will not be able to access to your server from https://app.plex.tv