Can Not Get Remote Access to Work

[fletcherhead]

Server Version#: Version 1.24.0.4930
Player Version#: Version 4.59.2

I can not manage to get remote access to work. I am positive that I’m being dumb here and am missing something simple but I just can’t see it.

I have given my mac a static IP.

I have set up port forwarding from the router connected to my mac to the router connected to the internet.

But it still doesn’t work and I don’t understand why.

Again, I am sure I am just missing something here so any help would be greatly apprecaited.

Thank you in advance.

Jamie

[tom80H]

First thing jumping to my eye is the fact that your remote access configuration is targeting 3 different local IP addresses:

• 192.168.0.17
• 192.168.31.130
• 192.168.31.30

Let’s start with straightening that out

[fletcherhead]

Hello.

Thanks for that he said sheepishly

So I have changed the Internal/Private IP addresses in their forwarding settings on both routers to the IP my Plex server has (192.168.31.30) and manually specified the public port on Plex (32400).

I have also forwarded the ports on both routers but still no luck. Any ideas as to where the issue might lie?

Thank you again for your help.

[tom80H]

With multiple active network components there’s always a risk of inconsistency when it comes to the e2e configuration.

Have you already checked if you can see/access the public IP address of your router on the specified public port from outside your home network?

[fletcherhead]

Hi Tom,

So used an online checker for ports and it looks like it’s closed. I guess this means that the port forwarding on the external facing router doesn’t work? Or more likely hasn’t been set up correctly by myself.

So the only port I’m using is 32400 so that’s set. Below is the external router settings.

The IP address of the external facing has a private address (192.168.0.1) and a public one (37.35.66.27)

This is set up to forward the port for both? Is that the problem here?

Thank you again for taking your time to help.

[tom80H]

That rule looks ok. You could try using a different public port to rule out your ISP blocking that particular port (or port range).
If that doesn’t work you might want to contact your ISP to confirm if they block certain ports (and if they can unblock them for you or tell you which actual range is blocked to pick a different one).

[e10kstarfire]

That looks like you are forwarding external port 32400 to port 32400 on your router, you should be forwarding it to a host like Plex ?

Can you do a network diagram? Presumably you have 2 routers on Class C (255.255.255.0 netmask), one on subnmet 192.168.0.x and another 192.168.31.x ?

[larssorensen83]

@e10kstarfire

That looks like you are forwarding external port 32400 to port 32400 on your router , you should be forwarding it to a host like Plex ?

I think he’s running one gateway (from his ISP) and one router, so the ISP gateway should forward to the router witch in turn forwards it to the Plex server (Atleast if he’s running things like I think). I just don’t understand why the ISP gateway aren’t in bridge mode?

Or it could be two active internet connections, but that’s not an easy setup.

[fletcherhead]

So now I have ISP Router:

Wireless access point Router:

and a mac mini :

Running the Plex Server:

I have forwarded the port on the ISP router like this:

And on the Wireless Access Point Router:

I see now that my mac has (I think?) and IP address for ethernet 192.168.31.30. as well as wifi 192.168.31.130. and I’m not sure if I have to chose which one Plex operates on?

I hope this helps.

As for turning the ISP router to bridging mode I couldn’t figure that out as it needed to clone a mac address and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Thank you all again.

[larssorensen83]

@fletcherhead

Wireless access point Router:

And this one has a DHCP server that allocates on 192.168.31.X?

@fletcherhead

As for turning the ISP router to bridging mode I couldn’t figure that out as it needed to clone a mac address and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

But you are aware that doing this way put you behind “Double NAT”?

@fletcherhead

Running the Plex Server:

This says 192.168.31.130.
And this says:

@fletcherhead

And on the Wireless Access Point Router:

192.168.31.30.

They should be the same…

I see now that my mac has (I think?) and IP address for ethernet 192.168.31.30. as well as wifi 192.168.31.130. and I’m not sure if I have to chose which one Plex operates on?

You should only be using one network card - wireless or lan. and lan I think is preferred.

[fletcherhead]

I’ve altered things as per above and now it looks like it’s available outside my network but is missing the IP addresses etc. I presume even though that info isn’t there it is still all good?

[fletcherhead]

I have chosen the LAN connection in PLEX settings (using 192.168.31.30.) and am forwarding to 192.168.31.30. on the ISP router.

And on the Internal Router:

And it looks like its working but the external port says ‘0’ and I’m not sure if this will affect it long term?

Again, thanks for taking the time to walk through this with me.

[fletcherhead]

As soon as I close down the PLEX settings page and go back to it the connection has gone.

I do not understand why this is happening.

I have tried to clone the mac address of the internal router with the ISP one to make a bridge - it’s enabled in the ISP settings - but that does not seem to make any difference.

[larssorensen83]

This is the reason I asked if you were sure you wanted to do double NAT - it complicates things… but anyhow.

@fletcherhead

I have chosen the LAN connection in PLEX settings (using 192.168.31.30.) and am forwarding to 192.168.31.30. on the ISP router.

If the lan cables goes from the ISP router to the internal routers Wan port, then the ISP router should forward packets to the ip adress of the internal router, the internal router then forwards it to the ip adress of your Plex server. Remember that you need to restart the Plex media server application after changing ip settings

To avoid double NAT:
I would suggest that you disabled the DHCP on the internal router and then connect it to the ISP router though one of the Lan ports instead of the Wan port.