If you’re following our Complete Guide to creating a Headless Plex Server with Plexamp endpoints using a Raspberry Pi you should already be familiar with Raspberry Pi Imager.

If you need a refresher on what Raspberry Pi Imager is and how to use it you should revisit the guide A Beginner’s Guide to Installing Raspberry Pi OS.

For this guide I’m using Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), but as of Plexamp 6.4.0 you can also use the 32-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS if you prefer.

In the advanced settings fill out all the necessary information. To keep things simple your username for this project should be pi. If your username is different there will just be an additional step to take.

After Raspberry Pi OS has been installed on your Micro-SD card you can insert it into your Raspberry Pi and power it on.

• How to Install Raspberry Pi OS

With Raspberry Pi OS installed on your Micro-SD card and your Raspberry Pi powered on you’ll want to make sure you can SSH into the Pi.

If you’re following our Complete Guide to creating a Headless Plex Server with Plexamp endpoints using a Raspberry Pi you should already be familiar with how to SSH into your Raspberry Pi, but if you need a refresh you can visit the guide How To SSH or Secure Shell into your Raspberry Pi

On your computer launch your command-line interface app (Terminal, in my case) and enter the following command, where username is the SSH username and hostname is the hostname you created in Raspberry Pi Imager:

ssh username@hostname.local

Then hit Enter and follow the prompts as you normally would.

Run the following command to ensure your Raspberry Pi Operating System is up to date:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Sometimes this process can take a few minutes. As long as your Terminal window is still scrolling everything should be working as intended, but watch for prompts where you may need to acknowledge some installations and upgrades.

As of Plexamp version 4.10 Headless Plexamp requires NodeJS 20 to run. It’s totally fine if you’re not familiar with Node JS, we’re just going to get it installed and then you likely won’t have to do anything with it again 😊

To install NodeJS 20, run the following commands in your Terminal window:

sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg && sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings

Hit ENTER

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource-repo.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg

Hit ENTER

Then we’ll select version 20 with the following command:

NODE_MAJOR=20

Hit ENTER

Then:

echo deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_$NODE_MAJOR.x nodistro main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list

Hit ENTER

Then, finally run this command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Hit ENTER

The Headless Plexamp package for Raspberry Pi is available from the Plexamp website, but we’re going to use a curl command as a shortcut to grab and unzip the latest version directly into our Raspberry Pi.

Copy and paste the following command in terminal to download the Plexamp package:

curl https://plexamp.plex.tv/headless/Plexamp-Linux-headless-v4.10.1.tar.bz2 > plexamp.tar.bz2

Hit Enter

Now you can unzip the package with the following command:

tar -xvf plexamp.tar.bz2

Hit Enter

To launch Plexamp for the first time you’ll need to get your token.

Enter this command in Terminal:

node plexamp/js/index.js

Hit Enter

Plexamp will start in the background.

In your browser navigate to https://plex.tv/claim and copy the claim code presented.

Paste the claim code into your Terminal window.

Hit Enter then follow the prompt to name your player.

Then you’ll need to find the IP address for your Raspberry Pi. To do that, enter this command in Terminal:

hostname -I

Hit Enter

You’ll need to launch Plexamp again after the last step. To do that, enter this command in Terminal:

node plexamp/js/index.js

Hit Enter

Now, copy the IP address and navigate to the following address in your web browser:

http://#.#.#.#:32500

Replace the placeholder IP address in this example with your own and you should be presented with a screen to log in to Plexamp using your Plex Username and Password.

After entering your log in credentials you’ll be presented with some source options from your Plex server. Pick one to start with, you can easily change this later.

At this point you probably just want to start streaming. I’ve noticed that each time I set up a fresh Headless Plexamp install the intial audio stream will come out garbled and distorted, or won’t play at all.

If this happens to you, you may need to check a couple settings.

First, go to Settings → Playback → Audio Output → Audio Device

If an Audio Device is already selected, de-select and re-select. I typically just select headphones here and have a quick listen to make sure music is streaming as expected.

Second, make sure you Select a Player.

In the top right corner of the browser, click on the cast icon. You should see the Player you’ve just created in addition to any other Plex endpoints. If a Player is already selected, de-select and re-select your new Player.

Now have a listen 🎧

The next thing you’ll probably want to do is to configure Plexamp to start up automatically everytime you power on your Raspberry Pi.

I’ve written a separate guide that will walk you through that process here: How to start Plexamp automatically when you power on your Raspberry Pi