Plex Media Server database backup script.

plexDatabaseBackupScript.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Backup a Plex database.
# Author Scott Smereka
# Version 1.0

# Script Tested on:
# Ubuntu 12.04 on 2/2/2014	[ OK ] 

# Plex Database Location.  The trailing slash is 
# needed and important for rsync.
plexDatabase="/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/"

# Location to backup the directory to.
backupDirectory="/srv/raid10/backups/plexmediaserver/database/"

# Log file for script's output named with 
# the script's name, date, and time of execution.
scriptName=$(basename ${0})
log="/srv/raid10/backups/logs/${scriptName}_`date +%m%d%y%H%M%S`.log"

# Check for root permissions
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
  echo -e "${scriptName} requires root privledges.\n"
  echo -e "sudo $0 $*\n"
  exit 1
fi

# Create Log
echo -e "Staring Backup of Plex Database." > $log 2>&1
echo -e "------------------------------------------------------------\n" >> $log 2>&1

# Stop Plex
echo -e "\n\nStopping Plex Media Server." >> $log 2>&1
echo -e "------------------------------------------------------------\n" >> $log 2>&1
sudo service plexmediaserver stop >> $log 2>&1

# Backup database
echo -e "\n\nStarting Backup." >> $log 2>&1
echo -e "------------------------------------------------------------\n" >> $log 2>&1
sudo rsync -av --delete "$plexDatabase" "$backupDirectory" >> $log 2>&1

# Restart Plex
echo -e "\n\nStarting Plex Media Server." >> $log 2>&1
echo -e "------------------------------------------------------------\n" >> $log 2>&1
sudo service plexmediaserver start >> $log 2>&1

# Done
echo -e "\n\nBackup Complete." >> $log 2>&1

Thank you for the script! I've modified somewhat it so that:

1. Now EXCLUDES the /Cache directory (that was trickier than expected) which for me saves ~700 mb of space per backup.
2. Also updated log to append so log is a continuous track of when and what.
3. Also updated as I have both a READ ONLY mount and a READ/WRITE mount, so now the R/W share is ONLY mounted at run time of script (me and my “this user should ONLY ever have READ access to my media” paranoia… lol)… NOTE: this also then requires the /mnt/buplex share to have the “noauto” option in /etc/fstab file…
4. Creates a different backup file via TAR each time, vs using RSYNC (which I found walking my tree rather slow and painful, and I want separate DB backups in case DB gets corrupted somehow... I don't to overwrite a good backup with a bad one etc).
5. Possibly a few other tweaks I'm forgetting. Sorry.

NOTE: the LAST bit of the file (unmounting R/W share) happens AFTER logging and r/w access to the log file (in my setup) ends... so NO ERROR will be caught if unmount of r/w mount fails. Move your log file somewhere else if this concerns you more than me (ie, you set this up to be automated, not manually run) ;-)

Some of the above others probably don’t want or need, but just FYI might prove useful (and as a note to self for my own future sanity!)

SCRIPT CODE BELOW HERE

#!/bin/bash


# Backup a Plex database.
# Original Author Scott Smereka
# Edited by Neil C.
# Version 1.1


# Script Tested on:
# Ubuntu 20.04 on 2020-Aug-9 [ OK ] 


# Plex Database Location. The trailing slash is 
# needed and important for rsync.
plexDatabase="/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server"


# Location to backup the directory to.
backupDirectory="/mnt/buplex/Archive/Plex_Backups"


# Log file for script's output named with 
# the script's name, date, and time of execution.
scriptName=$(basename ${0})
log="/mnt/buplex/Archive/Plex_Backups/logs/buplex.log"


# Check for root permissions
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
echo -e "${scriptName} requires root privileges.\n"
echo -e "sudo $0 $*\n"
exit 1
fi


# Mount Plex Media Share in R/W mode
sudo mount /mnt/buplex 

# Create Log
echo -e "***********" >> $log 2>&1
echo -e "$(date '+%Y-%b-%d at %k:%M:%S') :: Mounted Share in R/W Mode." | tee -a $log 2>&1


# Stop Plex
echo -e "$(date '+%Y-%b-%d at %k:%M:%S') :: Stopping Plex Media Server." | tee -a $log 2>&1
sudo service plexmediaserver stop | tee -a $log 2>&1


# Backup database
echo -e "$(date '+%Y-%b-%d at %k:%M:%S') :: Starting Backup." | tee -a $log 2>&1
# WORKING Line: sudo tar cfz "$backupDirectory/buplex-$(date '+%Y-%m(%b)-%d at %khr %Mmin').tar.gz"  "$plexDatabase" >> $log 2>&1
# cd into  directory so the magic --exclude below works per:
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/984204/shell-command-to-tar-directory-excluding-certain-files-folders
cd "$plexDatabase"
sudo tar cz --exclude='./Cache' -f "$backupDirectory/buplex-$(date '+%Y-%m(%b)-%d at %khr %Mmin').tar.gz" . >> $log 2>&1


# Restart Plex
echo -e "$(date '+%Y-%b-%d at %k:%M:%S') :: Starting Plex Media Server." | tee -a $log 2>&1
sudo service plexmediaserver start | tee -a $log 2>&1


# Done
echo -e "$(date '+%Y-%b-%d at %k:%M:%S') :: Backup Complete. Unmounting R/W Share..." | tee -a $log 2>&1
echo -e "***********" >> $log 2>&1
sudo umount /mnt/buplex

Tested on Linux Mint 19 Mate, works great

Can you add the feature to delete Backup-Version there are older then like 14 versions?

Create another bash file and add the following then run a cron weekly to keep things tidy, this is set to 10 days but depends how often you backup.

#!/bin/bash
#Name:
#Author:
#Date:
#Description: Cleanup files older than 10 days inside DIRECTOR_TO_CLEANUP

DIRECTORY_TO_CLEANUP="/mnt/buplex/Archive/Plex_Backups"
LOGFILE="/home/cleanup.txt"

/usr/bin/find ${DIRECTORY_TO_CLEANUP} -type f -mtime +10 -delete >${LOGFILE} 2>&1

Sadly I have a huge /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media folder that rsync and tar got killed within the process to backup that 'Media' folder.

Any other idea?

tar -zcvf is running for a while and it gets killed:

Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitle Contributions/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia/
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitle Contributions/com.plexapp.system/
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/GoP-0.xml
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitles/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Subtitles.xml
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Thumbnails/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Thumbnails/thumb1.jpg
Killed

Sadly I have a huge /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media folder that rsync and tar got killed within the process to backup that 'Media' folder.

Any other idea?

tar -zcvf is running for a while and it gets killed:

Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitle Contributions/com.plexapp.agents.localmedia/
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitle Contributions/com.plexapp.system/
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/GoP-0.xml
Media/localhost/1/571848b10aa99619bf4b3fab7e89847194a46fe.bundle/Contents/Subtitles/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Subtitles.xml
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Thumbnails/
Media/localhost/1/ef636c36896a6c53e515dd3c07a4df2d8dbd532.bundle/Contents/Thumbnails/thumb1.jpg
Killed

I'm unsure if you still have issues with this, but I went from 244G used on media to 24 after deleting video previews.

Thanks for this. I forked it and made it work under Mac OS.

Do you really need to stop PMS? SQLite provides an online backup mechanism that produces a transactionally consistent database while the application remains active. The crucial detail is to use Plex’s bundled SQLite executable rather than macOS’s generic sqlite3, because Plex uses its own SQLite build and extensions.

DB_DIR="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases"
BACKUP_DIR="/Volumes/Backups/Plex/Database"

mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

STAMP="$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S')"

"$PLEX_SQLITE" \
  "$DB_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db" \
  ".backup '$BACKUP_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-$STAMP'"

"$PLEX_SQLITE" \
  "$DB_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db" \
  ".backup '$BACKUP_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-$STAMP'"```
  
So a complete script might be something like:
  ```#!/bin/zsh

set -euo pipefail

PLEX_SQLITE="/Applications/Plex Media Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex SQLite"
DB_DIR="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases"
BACKUP_DIR="/Volumes/Backups/Plex/Database"
STAMP="$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S')"

MAIN_DB="$DB_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db"
BLOBS_DB="$DB_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db"

MAIN_BACKUP="$BACKUP_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-$STAMP"
BLOBS_BACKUP="$BACKUP_DIR/com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-$STAMP"

mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

if [[ ! -x "$PLEX_SQLITE" ]]; then
    echo "Plex SQLite executable not found: $PLEX_SQLITE" >&2
    exit 1
fi

for db in "$MAIN_DB" "$BLOBS_DB"; do
    if [[ ! -f "$db" ]]; then
        echo "Database not found: $db" >&2
        exit 1
    fi
done

echo "Backing up Plex library database..."
"$PLEX_SQLITE" "$MAIN_DB" ".timeout 60000" ".backup '$MAIN_BACKUP'"

echo "Backing up Plex blobs database..."
"$PLEX_SQLITE" "$BLOBS_DB" ".timeout 60000" ".backup '$BLOBS_BACKUP'"

echo "Checking library database..."
main_result="$("$PLEX_SQLITE" "$MAIN_BACKUP" "PRAGMA integrity_check;")"

echo "Checking blobs database..."
blobs_result="$("$PLEX_SQLITE" "$BLOBS_BACKUP" "PRAGMA integrity_check;")"

if [[ "$main_result" != "ok" ]]; then
    echo "Library database integrity check failed: $main_result" >&2
    rm -f "$MAIN_BACKUP"
    exit 1
fi

if [[ "$blobs_result" != "ok" ]]; then
    echo "Blobs database integrity check failed: $blobs_result" >&2
    rm -f "$BLOBS_BACKUP"
    exit 1
fi

# Retain 14 local staging generations.
find "$BACKUP_DIR" \
    -type f \
    \( -name 'com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-*' \
       -o -name 'com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-*' \) \
    -mtime +14 \
    -delete

echo "Plex database backup completed successfully:"
echo "$MAIN_BACKUP"
echo "$BLOBS_BACKUP"```