Setting Up Multiple Media Servers for Different Families at Home

[Nevrion 1]

Hello, I have an idea and would like to know to what extent this idea can be implemented.

In my house, three families live (mine, parents, brother). I know the simplest solution would be to use one server for all (hardware-wise that's also going to happen), but I would like to use one server for each family so that only the respective family members appear on the home screen, only the own family appears in Watch2Gether in Kodi, etc.

The idea now is to save storage space for metadata, etc. by using 3 containers. One server scrapes media info, graphics, etc., and the others then use this data.

So, if I have NFO files in the movie/series folders and use the meta path (/config/metadata) specified under /librarysetup/advanced for all, would that be sufficient? Are Intro Skip information also stored there, and is it enough for only one server to query this? What else should be considered?

[Lessaj 81]

You can disable profiles from being displayed on the login screen.

[darkassassin07 434]

I don't think you'd be able to use the same metadata folder for each server.

 

As that folder is populated by the server that owns it, that server builds a database of what exactly is in that metadata folder and where. You can see that just looking at the folder structure that's inside that metadata folder for a running server.

The other servers don't have this database/index and aren't going to scan the existing metadata folder to build it. They'll just create new files, likely with a bunch of conflicts with each other, leaving none of them functional. 

At best you'll just get the same amount of metadata as you would have; but crammed into one folder. No real savings.

 

You can certainly test this though. Fire up a couple test containers and see what happens. Just don't hold your breath...

 

 

 

The other issue that comes to mind is adding new media:

If you have one server writing nfo files and the rest reading them, you'll have to ensure the primary server is always the first to scan for new media. If any of the 'slave' servers scan first, the nfo files won't exist yet so they may grab different metadata or none at all if metadata fetchers are disabled.

[Nevrion 1]

I almost feared that... would have been too good to be true.

[Nevrion 1]

I've solved it, at least I currently see no errors, and each of the servers seems to be functioning as intended.

Directory structure on host:

/docker-data/emby/   (all emby container stuff)

Server 1 (master)
Fetches graphics/info etc. during scan NFO files in media directory Graphics in media directory

Embyconfig:
Metafolder: /config/metadata
Intro Backup /config/metadata/intros

/docker-data/emby/server1/config:/config:rw
/docker-data/emby/server1/library:/config/metadata/library:rw
/docker-data/emby/metadata:/config/metadata:rw
/mnt/media:/media:rw

Server 2 (slave)
All libraries are only allowed to read local metadata, no automatic scans. Library schedule every 6 hours, meta import every 6 hours, intro import every 6 hours.)
Since the library folder needs to be writable for generated thumbnails to display in libraries, I then mounted it separately.

 

Embyconfig:
Metafolder: /config/metadata
Intro Backup /config/metadata/intros

/docker-data/emby/server2/config:/config:rw
/docker-data/emby/server2/library:/config/metadata/library:rw
/docker-data/emby/metadata:/config/metadata:ro
/mnt/media:/media:rw