Ability to manually set public IP for remote access

Plex doesn’t allow a bare IP address as a Custom server access URL, but it is possible to leverage the the *.plex.direct automagic DNS and SSL system to craft a valid HTTPS URL for a specific IP address.

Borrowing from this post, instructions for crafting a custom IPv4 URL:

  1. Access Secure Plex Web using the server’s LAN IP
    e.g., https://192.168.0.23:32400/web
    (For this visit, accept any warnings that pop up.)
  2. View the Plex server’s certificate
    • In Chrome, click on the lock :lock: next to the URL, → Certificate
    • Expand the Details section
  3. Select and copy the whole Common Name plex.direct URL
    e.g., *.123ab4c5678901234d567890e1f23g45.plex.direct
  4. Identify the public IPv4 address and public port of the Plex Media Server
    e.g., 203.0.113.4 and 57832.
  5. Combine your public IPv4 address, replacing . with -, and your plex.direct URL, and your public port
    e.g.,
    https://203-0-113-4.123ab4c5678901234d567890e1f23g45.plex.direct:57832
  6. Enter that into Custom server access URLs

Plex will register that URL with the Plex Cloud.

When a Custom server access URL is specified, it’s generally not necessary to enable Remote Access.


Specifying an IP address is useful in a few scenarios, but it doesn’t resolve asymmetric routing issues. If outbound packets use a VPN, but inbound requests don’t, asymmetric routing is very unlikely to work correctly.

That’s not a Plex issue, it’s a stateful TCP/IP firewall & NAT issue.