Note that running a Docker container is inherently a pretty technical process. If you are unable or unwilling to learn the rudiments of using Docker, this may not be the tool for you.
If the idea of editing YAML files by hand is daunting, this may not be the tool for you. All the configuration of PMM is done via YAML text files, so if you are unable or unwilling to learn how those work, you should stop here.
Finally, this walkthrough is intended to give you a basic grounding in how to get the script running. It doesn't cover how to create your own collections, or how to add overlays, or any of the myriad other things PMM is capable of. It provides a simple "Getting Started" guide for those for whom the standard install instructions make no sense; presumably because you've never run a Docker container before.
That’s a command you’re going to type or paste into your terminal (OSX or Linux) or Powershell (Windows).
IMPORTANT NOTE:
This walkthrough is going to be pretty pedantic. I’m assuming you’re reading it because you have no idea how to get a Docker container going, so I’m proceeding from the assumption that you want to be walked through every little detail. You’re going to deliberately cause errors and then fix them as you go through it. This is to help you understand what exactly is going on behind the scenes so that when you see these sorts of problems in the wild you will have some background to understand what’s happening. If I only give you the happy path walkthrough, then when you make a typo later on you’ll have no idea where that typo might be or why it’s breaking things.
I am assuming you do not have any of these tools already installed. When writing this up I started with a brand new Windows 10 install.
I'm also assuming you are doing this on a computer, not through a NAS interface or the like. You can do all this through something like the Synology NAS UI or Portainer or the like, but those aren't documented here. This uses the docker command line because it works the same on all platforms.
You may want to take an hour to get familiar with Docker fundamentals with the [official tutorial](https://www.docker.com/101-tutorial/).
DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES BELOW if you want this to just work. Don't change the docker image [`linuxserver.io` will not work for this, for example]; don't change the paths, etc.
This tutorial uses the official image, and you should, too. Don't change `meisnate12/plex-meta-manager` to the `linuxserver.io` image or any other; the lsio image specifically has [idiosyncracies](images.md) that will prevent this walkthrough from working. The official image *will* behave exactly as documented below. Others very possibly won't.
Status: Downloaded newer image for meisnate12/plex-meta-manager:latest
Config Error: config not found at //config
```
That error means you don’t have a config file, but we know that most everything is in place to run the image.
### Setting up a volume map
PMM, inside that Docker container, can only see other things *inside the container*. We want to add our own files for config and metadata, so we need to set something up that lets PMM see files we create *outside* the container. This is called a "volume map".
Go to your home directory and create a new directory:
The default config file contains a reference to a directory that will show an error in the output later. That error can safely be ignored, but it causes some confusion with new users from time to time.
Go to [this URL](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/master/config/config.yml.template) using a web browser; choose the "Save" command, then save the file at:
The docker commands in this article are creating and deleting containers.
However, you probably ultimately want a container that runs all the time, even after reboots, and wakes up to do its thing.
This would be the minimal case:
```
docker run -d \
--restart=unless-stopped \
-v PMM_PATH_GOES_HERE:/config:rw \
meisnate12/plex-meta-manager
```
That will create a container that will run in the background until you explicitly stop it, surviving reboots, and waking up every morning at 3AM to process collections.
