As the title states I am wondering what would be a good machine to build for my piracy. I am open to buying a used machine on eBay and expanding over time.

The last time I was sailing I had a Dell R610 Server Rack but I don’t have the space for this now. So something that can sit behind a tv stand in the corner next to the router.

  • I would be running Plex / Jellyfin
  • Some kind of torrent software
  • Something for NZBs if still viable
  • then the usual SONARR, RADARR, etc

I would like to be able to let friends connect from outside my house to stream media and allow them access so they can add films and the server goes off and finds them, extracts them, and adds them to the media server.

Thanks.

  • potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fishEnglish
    533·
    2 months ago

    I want to give you some advice: Use Jellyfin, not plex. It has far deviated to a “hub” for other streaming services and unless you want to have built-in streaming platforms on your home media server, or have plex’s own “live tv” service shoved up your rear, I would steer clear.

    Jellyfin is pretty lightweight if you’re just streaming 1-2 connections at a time, I ran it on a raspberry pi 4 for a while and it was near flawless, only recently have I made a proper VM setup for it.

    • kungen@feddit.nuEnglish
      11·
      2 months ago

      You can disable most of that stuff on Plex. But yeah, Jellyfin is nicer anyways as it’s free software.

            • tht@social.pwned.pageEnglish
              41·
              2 months ago

              They mean free as in freedom, not free as in beer

              Free software generally refers to open source software, who’s code you can view and edit yourself

              • realitista@lemm.eeEnglish
                3·
                2 months ago

                When we talk about FOSS, we talk about Free, Open Source Software. Plex is free but not open source, and it’s free price is not enshrined in it’s license as with other FOSS software, which means that there could be a rug pull at any time. But I think that’s unlikely due to its business model.

                Jellyfin is FOSS software meaning it will stay free and open source due to its license.

    • bktheman@awful.systemsEnglish
      92·
      2 months ago

      The only problem is properly exposing jellyfin to the Internet. How do you do it?

      I’m not planning on leaving Plex anytime soon. But I did plan on setting up jellyfin in parallel to play with it and learn about it. But this stopped me in my tracks.

      I don’t want my family to need to VPN into my network. Plex, for as frustrating as it is in many ways, just works. And it works on so much stuff.

      • liliumstar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        12·
        2 months ago

        Jellyfin offers HTTPS, you just need to specify a certificate. It’s going to be a lot easier to just setup a web server like nginx and expose that to the internet, probably via port forwarding on your gateway/router. In that case, you can get a free certificate from letsencrypt.

        So, the basic steps are:

        1. Get a domain name
        2. Setup JF server, ensure it works locally
        3. Install a web server and set it up to proxy traffic to JF
        4. Expose the web server ports 80 and 443 to the internet
        5. Setup letsencrypt with automatic renewal

        This might sound like a lot of work, but at least you own your data and service. Plex can and will block accounts, rendering servers basically useless.

      • ddh@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        I run both and most users still choose to watch via Plex. I’d like if Jellyfin took over, but it’s not there yet.

    • Y|yukichigai@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      I keep Plex as a backup because some client devices are really tetchy about interacting with Jellyfin. Not every smart device supports the Jellyfin app (nor VLC), and if they do have a built-in media player it’s typically one that uses filesize-based progress tracking, i.e. you wind up being unable to fast-forward or rewind the video (or sometimes unable to even pause). Generally every major brand of smart device has a version of the Plex app, for better or worse.