I've wiped my hard drive and am starting from scratch with my setup. I'm using Linux and have three hard drives: one for my OS, one that's empty, and another filled with media. I'm trying to set up Plex and Audiobookshelf, but even though I can see my second drive, I can't access any of the folders inside it. I've followed some instructions on changing ownership and permissions using 'chown' and 'chmod', and it now shows that the folders are owned by Plex. I think I added myself to the Plex group too, but I'm still having issues seeing the folders when configuring either service. I'm really confused and wondering whether my second drive should be owned by me or root and how to fix this issue so that Plex can read my files. Can someone help me understand?
1 Answer
To figure out drive ownership, it’s good to know that normally, the root user owns most directories unless you've set something different. Typically, your personal files and folders in your home directory are owned by you. If you want both Plex and Audiobookshelf to see your media, the media folders might need to be owned by either you or the processes that run those applications. Checking who owns the folders inside the drive can help you figure this out. A command like `ls -l /mnt/yourDrive` can show you the ownership details. If they say 'plex:plex', make sure you can access those folders as well.
So if most of the folders say 'kappakingtut:kappakingtut' but a few are under 'plex:plex', does that mean Plex has access to everything? Or do I need to worry about ownership of the entire drive?