Connect two plex servers

General Discussions
1

Hello community,

I describe my scenario:
I have a network with a Fritzbox and a plex server. At another location, an acquaintance of mine also has his own network with a Fritzbox and a plex server. We do not want to share the plex servers for remote access, but we want to access each other’s media libraries/servers.

We thought that if we were to establish a wireguard connection via our FritzBox and thus connect our networks, Plex could recognize both networks and thus display both servers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t…

Now to my question: Is there a way to make two separate networks or even plex servers that are not released for remote access accessible?

2

That doesn’t make sense. The “share” feature is exactly what you need in this scenario.
If you set it up as designed, you both will have access to each of your servers within all your clients – without any need for switching accounts or other shenanigans.

If you frequently use libraries of the other server, you can freely favorite/pin libraries from both servers in your clients.

3

If you’re already using a wireguard connection between your two locations, you could in theory mount the remote location’s file share on your local plex instance. Make a library entry on your plex server and use the remote mount.

That would keep you tied to your own plex server, but accessing the remote media. Just a thought.

4

In practice that is not a good idea. Doing so could cause server instability.

NFS and SMB are designed for LAN, not WAN, connections. They could easily flood the VPN with traffic, disrupting Internet service for others in the households.

NFS & SMB have no concept of buffering (like PMS filling a client buffer). They expect an immediate response to a request for data. Any delay (bandwidth contention, poor routing, etc.) will be magnified, since Plex has to wait on the operating system which is waiting on the data from the remote system across the Internet.

An Internet outage or one person shutting down their system could also cause problems. The mount points would be unavailable and the system would keep trying to re-establish them.

5

While your points are valid in terms of potential manifestation of mount point drop and PMS issues, in practicality NFS and SMB mounts over VPN work quite nicely and have been used for years in various systems I’ve encountered. In fact, I’ve tested this over the past 2 years with a friend over an ipsec tunnel with no issues. This included multiple power outages, server crashes, and ISP disruptions. The actual failure modes to the users were almost identical to any local PMS server issue.

It is technically a valid option for the OP, if they wish to avoid the sharing functionality. Just sharing my two cents.

6

Perhaps it is helpful to add that we operate the servers via an account…

1 Like
7

Good to know it is working for you. I last tried it several years ago. It was never reliable for me, so I abandoned the effort.

1 Like
8

Did you mean to say that you use the same account to claim each server?

9

yes I mean that I use one plex pass account with the two servers

10

Then it is even easier.
As long as there are no network hurdles, all clients (which are hopefully signed into the same user account as well) are able to access both servers at the same time and select the libraries to pin/favorite on their Home screens.

1 Like
11

If you do not want to enable remote access, then you need to network your two servers together using a VPN solution of some kind. You mention using wireguard, and that should work. However, you need to able to find eachother.

Technical description, skip at will:
The way Plex works, is your clients do not simply “scan” for a local server, they need to be told the IP address of the server itself, even in the same network. The reason this works currently is because your server knows its own private IP address, and your house’s public IP address, and sends both of these IPs to Plex (the company) automatically. When you log in as your client, you receive both IP addresses as potential locations to reach the server. So, let’s say your server is at IP 192.168.0.10, and your public IP is 15.15.15.15. Your client in your house will attempt to reach 192.168.0.10, finds your server, and connects right away. If you are out of the house, your phone would try 192.168.0.10, find nothing (because you are on cellular), then it would try 15.15.15.15, and (assuming you port forwarded) find the server.
End technical description

When you use wireguard, you likely have a new “special” IP address range for all the computers/servers at your friend’s house. You need to find this IP address, and your friend will need to place the IP of his server FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE into his server settings, in the Settings > Network > Custom server access URLs box. You need to do the same on your server, but for your friend’s perspective.

It’s possible that it keeps the last digit the same, but you are probably getting a subnet change with wireguard. So from your friend’s perspective, YOUR network might appear to be 192.168.10.X, and your server can be accessed at 192.168.10.10. So you would put 192.168.10.10 in the box I mentioned up above (EDIT: into your friend’s box, not yours). YOUR IP IS LIKELY DIFFERENT, DON’T JUST ENTER THAT IP WITHOUT CHECKING FOR YOURSELF

I would expect wireguard settings in your router should state what the IP range of your friend’s network is, and you use that to find out.

12

Thanks for your help. Ok that looks interesting.:+1: I will try it as soon as possible.

13

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