Monitoring your Plex Media Server with Varken

Before we get started, you should go buy the guys over at Varken a coffee and star their repo. Varken makes the data collection of Plex server stats via companion apps stupid easy.

For this to work you will need at least one of the following services configured and running:

Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Tautulli, Ombi

Diagram of Varken pulling stats from Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Tautulli, and Ombi into InfluxDB and Grafana

If you followed my guide, here, then deploying Varken into your InfluxDB Docker network setup should be rather easy. First SSH to your docker host. Then create the config directory and copy down my compose file for Varken.

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mkdir /opt/containers/varken && curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/alexandzors/39760b9e742d6b9b28a0164af8648ac8/raw/091f7b35ad2e44fdaa46f7c410d97e2292f9905c/varken-compose.yml -o /opt/containers/varken/varken-compose.yml

Terminal output after downloading the Varken compose file

Now we need to edit the compose file and enter the required info for our services. (You can mount a pre-defined config file to Varken if you do not want to use environment variables! Also the official Varken compose file can be found here, which includes Grafana and InfluxDB.)

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nano /opt/containers/varken/varken-compose.yml

Change the volumes section to match your setup. Then edit the following entries under the “environment” section:

Variable	Value
TZ	your Timezone
VRKN_GLOBAL_MAXMIND_LICENSE_KEY	MaxMind key for GEOIP DB
VRKN_INFLUXDB_URL	influx
VRKN_INFLUXDB_USERNAME	varken
VRKN_INFLUXDB_PASSWORD	’password’
VRKN_TAUTULLI_1_URL	url for your Tautulli install
VRKN_TAUTULLI_1_APIKEY	Tautulli API key
VRKN_SONARR_1_URL	url for your Sonarr install
VRKN_SONARR_1_APIKEY	Sonarr API key
VRKN_RADARR_1_URL	url for your Radarr install
VRKN_RADARR_1_APIKEY	Radarr API key
VRKN_OMBI_1_URL	url for your Ombi install
VRKN_OMBI_1_APIKEY	Ombi API key

Save and close the file CTRL+X then Y. Once the file is closed we can go ahead and create the varken database / varken user in Influx. (-u root

is your InfluxDB root/admin user!)

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curl -XPOST http://localhost:8086/query -u root:password --data-urlencode "q=CREATE DATABASE varken"

Create the user for Varken using the password you specified in the config earlier. Then assign user permissions.

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curl -XPOST http://localhost:8086/query -u root:password --data-urlencode "q=CREATE USER varken WITH PASSWORD 'password'"
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curl -XPOST http://localhost:8086/query -u root:password --data-urlencode "q=GRANT WRITE ON varken TO varken"
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curl -XPOST http://localhost:8086/query -u root:password --data-urlencode "q=GRANT READ ON varken TO grafana"

Terminal output after creating the Varken InfluxDB user and permissions

Deploy Varken:

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docker-compose -f /opt/containers/varken/varken-compose.yml up -d

Importing the Varken dashboard

First we need to set up the data source for Varken. Navigate to Grafana, log in, and then go to your data sources configuration page. Click Add data source and then click InfluxDB. Input the following:

Name: InfluxDB [Varken]
URL: http://influxdb_influx_1
Database: varken
User: grafana
Password: ‘grafana user password’

The Grafana user info was defined if you followed my guide, however if you did not you can substitute these credentials with the varken user instead.

Click Save & Test. Then click + > Import. In the Grafana.com Dashboard, import ID 9585.

Grafana dashboard import screen for the Varken dashboard

Fill out the info to match your setup and make sure you select varken in the varken dropdown box. Once done, click Import.

Optional

Here are a few panel JSONs for extra panels you can add to your Varken dashboard.

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{
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  "aliasColors": {
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    "": "#b7dbab",
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    "AAC": "#f2c96d",
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    "AC3": "#70dbed",
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    "DCA": "#f2c96d",
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    "OPUS": "#f29191"
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  },
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  "breakPoint": "50%",
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  "cacheTimeout": null,
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  "combine": {
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    "label": "Other",
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    "threshold": ".04"
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  },
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  "datasource": "InfluxDB [Varken]",
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  "decimals": 0,
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  "fontSize": "110%",
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  "format": "none",
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  "gridPos": {
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    "h": 8,
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    "w": 4,
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    "x": 12,
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    "y": 4
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  },
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  "hideTimeOverride": true,
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  "id": 59,
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  "interval": null,
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  "legend": {
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    "percentage": true,
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    "percentageDecimals": 0,
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    "show": true,
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    "sort": "total",
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    "sortDesc": true,
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    "values": false
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  },
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  "legendType": "On graph",
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  "links": [],
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  "maxDataPoints": 3,
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  "nullPointMode": "connected",
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  "options": {},
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  "pieType": "donut",
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  "pluginVersion": "6.5.2",
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  "strokeWidth": "1",
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  "targets": [
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    {
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      "alias": "$tag_stream_audio_codec",
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      "groupBy": [
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        {
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          "params": [
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            "stream_audio_codec"
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          ],
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          "type": "tag"
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        }
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      ],
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      "measurement": "Tautulli",
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      "orderByTime": "ASC",
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      "policy": "default",
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      "refId": "A",
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      "resultFormat": "time_series",
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      "select": [
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        [
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          {
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            "params": [
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              "hash"
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            ],
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            "type": "field"
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          },
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          {
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            "params": [],
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            "type": "distinct"
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          },
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          {
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            "params": [],
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            "type": "count"
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          }
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        ]
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      ],
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      "tags": [
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        {
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          "key": "server",
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          "operator": "=",
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          "value": "1"
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        },
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        {
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          "condition": "AND",
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          "key": "type",
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          "operator": "=",
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          "value": "Session"
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        }
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      ]
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    }
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  ],
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  "timeFrom": "2w",
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  "timeShift": null,
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  "title": "Stream Audio Codec",
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  "type": "grafana-piechart-panel",
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  "valueName": "total"
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}

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{
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  "aliasColors": {
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    "0.7 Mbps 328p": "#9ac48a",
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    "1.5 Mbps 480p": "#f2c96d",
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    "2 Mbps 720p": "#b7dbab",
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    "3 Mbps 720p": "#f2c96d",
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    "4 Mbps 720p": "#f29191",
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    "Original": "#70dbed"
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  },
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  "breakPoint": "50%",
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  "cacheTimeout": null,
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  "combine": {
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    "label": "Other",
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    "threshold": ".04"
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  },
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  "datasource": "InfluxDB [Varken]",
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  "decimals": 0,
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  "fontSize": "110%",
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  "format": "none",
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  "gridPos": {
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    "h": 8,
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    "w": 4,
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    "x": 8,
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    "y": 4
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  },
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  "hideTimeOverride": true,
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  "id": 69,
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  "interval": null,
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  "legend": {
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    "percentage": true,
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    "percentageDecimals": 0,
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    "show": true,
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    "sort": "total",
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    "sortDesc": true,
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    "values": false
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  },
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  "legendType": "On graph",
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  "links": [],
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  "maxDataPoints": 3,
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  "nullPointMode": "connected",
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  "options": {},
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  "pieType": "donut",
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  "pluginVersion": "6.5.2",
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  "strokeWidth": "1",
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  "targets": [
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    {
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      "alias": "$tag_quality_profile",
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      "groupBy": [
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        {
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          "params": [
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            "quality_profile"
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          ],
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          "type": "tag"
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        }
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      ],
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      "measurement": "Tautulli",
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      "orderByTime": "ASC",
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      "policy": "default",
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      "refId": "A",
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      "resultFormat": "time_series",
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      "select": [
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        [
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          {
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            "params": [
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              "hash"
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            ],
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            "type": "field"
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          },
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          {
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            "params": [],
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            "type": "distinct"
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          },
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          {
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            "params": [],
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            "type": "count"
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          }
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        ]
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      ],
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      "tags": [
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        {
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          "key": "server",
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          "operator": "=",
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          "value": "1"
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        },
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        {
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          "condition": "AND",
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          "key": "type",
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          "operator": "=",
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          "value": "Session"
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        }
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      ]
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    }
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  ],
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  "timeFrom": "2w",
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  "title": "Stream Quality Profile",
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  "type": "grafana-piechart-panel",
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  "valueName": "total"
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}

Monitoring your Plex Media Server with Varken

Importing the Varken dashboard

Optional

Useful links

Comments

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