I recently discovered that Plex has a “relay” feature to allow indirect streaming of media via Plex’s servers. I do not want Plex to allow remote access to my servers and I prefer to manage remote access via alternative means (eg. VPN). I have not found a method for disabling “relay” within the GUI (I have disabled Remote Access) and would hope that the Plex team can advise on how this can be done without blocking all Internet connections from the Plex Media Server.
My view is that a feature such as this which enables remote access to a system should have a method to opt-out. I understand that there are a group of users who would prefer seamless access over security, however, there is certainly another group that would opt for security over access.
Plex uses SSL to communicate on port 443 (https) and communicates with plex.tv and a number of relay servers. It’s a matter of either blocking 443 altogether or blocking access to plex.tv +/- the relay network. I can try blocking plex.tv on 443, however, I’m not sure if this will have any other negative impact (eg. plex pass subscription) and also if it prevents plex from attempting to communicate to the relay network.
Server host="139.162.202.171" region="lhr"/>
Server host="139.162.216.99" region="lhr"/>
Server host="184.105.148.83" region="sjc"/>
Server host="173.255.253.36" region="sjc"/>
Server host="45.33.73.209" region="ewr"/>
Server host="50.116.49.5" region="ewr"/>
Server host="45.79.198.112" region="atl"/>
Server host="45.79.211.86" region="atl"/>
Server host="82.94.168.11" region="ams"/>
Server host="82.94.168.13" region="ams"/>
Server host="139.162.7.93" region="sin"/>
Server host="103.3.62.6" region="sin"/>
Server host="45.79.10.123" region="dfw"/>
Server host="40.74.127.229" region="itm"/>
Server host="104.214.144.122" region="itm"/>
I certainly could try blocking access to the above to see if it works, however, there should definitely be an option to opt-out of relay.
Glad I’m not the only one who’s been impacted by this. I finally took the plunge and updated from 0.9.12.19 to 0.9.17.3 (was the latest available in the debian repo at the time) a few days ago, and then discovered I was able to connect to a PMS instance that deliberately had remote access disabled to prevent accidental upload saturation. 512Kbps upload, not enough to stream anything, and very easily saturated with garbage if anyone tried.
Hope this comes soon!
EDIT:
Looks like this has been asked for as early as March 21st
Rolling back to 0.9.12.19 it is! Hope I dont screw my library :\
If this is still active I successfully crippled the relay function by telnet-ing into my NAS box, finding the folder containing the relay executable and renaming it. Plex still tries but it doesn’t work and external relaying doesn’t happen. The rest of plex still works just fine.
The latest version appears to fix this. I updated just now and even without what I did yesterday if Remote Access is disabled then Relay is also disabled. I don’t know why that advice wasn’t posted here at the time but if anyone checks here that is the solution.
