In this post we will go through everything you need to do to get Sonarr up and running and integrated with your Plex Media Server on Windows
First of all what is Sonarr and how can it help you? Sonarr provides a means of automatically passing file index information (Torrent websites) to your download client (such as Utorrent) and then performing actions on the downloaded files. For instance you may want files named in a certain way, metadata added and then moved to a network share
Installation
Download the Sonarr install files from here. Once downloaded run the NzbDrone.master file
Click Next
Click Finish
You should now be able to open a browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:7878/ which is your Sonarr service
Media Management Settings
Click Settings, then click Media Management. Change Advanced Settings to Shown. Here are the settings I change and why:
Rename Episodes: On
I don’t want to accept the TV Show name as its downloaded from the source, I want to use my own naming convention
Replace illegal Characters: On
Needed to copy to a Windows fileshare
Standard Episode Format:
{Series Title} – S{season:00}E{episode:00} – {Episode Title}
This should generate a movie name of:
C:\TV Shows\An Awesome TV Show (2012)\An Awesome TV Show (2012) – S01E01 – The Episode Title.mkv
All of the other options I leave as follows:
Profile Settings
Click Profiles, then change Advanced Settings to Shown. Here you will have to decide whether the in-built profiles are suitable for your needs or if you will need to create a new profile. We will come back to profiles later when we need to add one
Quality Settings
For me the HD-1080p profile is fine but I need to tweak the file sizes a bit. To do this click Quality
This can look a bit confusing at first but essentially the orange buttons show you your minimum and maximum sizes for a 30 minute video. The blue buttons show you your minimum and maximum sizes for a 60 minute video.
You can see in my settings I have no minimum but like to keep a 5GB maximum for 1 hour 1080p TV episodes
Indexers Settings
Click Indexers, this is where we need to configure our Torrent site. Under options you can specify things like Minimum age and Retention (Usenet only)
Click the + and choose your Torrent provider, I will use Rarbg for this example so click the Rarbg button
Click the Test button and you should get a Test Succeeded message, then click Save
Download Client Settings
Click Download Client, leave all the options as the defaults and click the +
Choose your download client, I use Utorrent so select that
Configure your download client’s settings, my client is on another server so I enter that IP address. Note that you will need to be able to communicate with your client on port 8080 so you may need to make changes to the firewall. Click Test and you should see a Test Succeeded message, then click Save
If using Utorrent you will need to enable the Web Ui as below
Connection Settings
Click Connections, then click the + button and select Plex Media Server
Configure your Plex Media Server connection details then click Test, if you get a succeeded message click Save
Metadata Settings
Click Metadata, some users like to use metadata files that are saved inside the movie folders – if for instance you also use Kodi. I actually like to create my own metadata using MediaCompanion so like this option as it does that for me. Click Kodi
Click the Enable button and then click Save
Security Settings
Click General and scroll down to security, change Authentication to basic set a username and password
Make sure the update branch is set to master and click Save
Adding TV Shows!
We are now ready to start adding some TV Shows! Click Series and then Add Series
Type the name of the TV Show you want to add to your Torrent client for download. Then click Path and choose Add a different path
Enter the root path to your TV Shows folder, this may be local or on a NAS like mine below
Leave the Monitor as Missing if you want Sonar to keep checking for missing episodes. Choose a quality profile that you configured earlier then click the plus button. Sonarr will scan to see which episodes you already have (based on Path data you entered) then start to download missing episodes.
The file will now start downloading in Utorrent and all new episodes that are made available with your quality settings will be automatically downloaded.
