Table of Contents
Unmanic Optimization Engine
Unmanic runs alongside Plex on Physical Host 2 (The Brawn). It operates as a background worker, automatically scanning your NFS library and utilizing the NVIDIA GPU to transcode bloated legacy files (H.264, MPEG2) into high-efficiency H.265 (HEVC). This drastically reduces storage footprint and normalizes the media format for direct-play delivery.
1. Container Deployment with GPU Passthrough
Because Unmanic requires complex dependency chains, it is deployed via Docker. However, the container must be executed with the `–gpus all` flag to permit the dockerized application to interface with the bare-metal NVIDIA drivers.
# Install Docker and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit sudo apt install docker.io -y curl -fsSL https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/gpgkey | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg # ... (Deploy nvidia-docker2 package) ... # Launch Unmanic sudo docker run -d \ --name unmanic \ --restart unless-stopped \ --gpus all \ -p 8888:8888 \ -e PUID=1000 \ -e PGID=1000 \ -v /opt/unmanic/config:/config \ -v /mnt/data/media:/library \ -v /mnt/plex_cache:/tmp/unmanic \ josh5/unmanic:latest
Note: Unmanic leverages the same `/mnt/plex_cache` drive as Plex to isolate its heavy write cycles.
2. Plugin Rulesets & Library Configuration
Access the Unmanic dashboard at `http:<BRAWN_IP>:8888`. Navigate to Plugins and install the following pipeline rules: 1. Video Codec Optimizer (NVENC HEVC): Configures the GPU to process video tracks exclusively into H.265. 2. Audio Format Normalization (AAC): Ensures high-compatibility fallback audio exists for web clients. 3. Remove Subtitles / Unwanted Tracks: Strips bloated foreign language tracks to save additional space. Navigate to Libraries: - Add your mapped `/library` path. - Enable the internal scheduled scanner. Caution: Unmanic performs destructive operations (it deletes the original file after replacing it with the optimized version). Ensure your plugin workflow is tested on a small sample directory before pointing it at your entire `/mnt/data/media/` NFS share. Next Step: Secure these web interfaces behind the NGINX Edge Proxy.