Feature Request: Build in ngrok in an era of CGNAT

Man I love my Plex server, and when I moved and had to pick a new service provider I was saddened to find out I was behind a CGNAT.

It sucked, bad. I tried various VPN’s and all of them were lousy behind CGNAT.

Then one fateful day I met ngrok. Probably the most light weight way to expose anything to the internet.

First off - it works - literally no issues, but a few drawbacks. Right now the Plex app sees the connection as indirect and as such limits the remote stream rate. Also the app believes it is not found outside the network, but let me assure you - it most certainly is.

Four great parts about ngrok

  1. It is SUPER light weight and EASY to use
  2. It is CHEAP
  3. I have a custom sub-domain for my Plex now - with very simple setup
  4. I can run it as a service - piece of cake - using NSSM on Windows.

Integrating ngrok into Plex would enable customers who are behind CGNAT or other double-NAT’s to use their media remotely to their little hearts content.

It’s simple - light weight - so easy to use.

Think about it…

I think that it’s more likely that Plex at some point implements UDP Hole Punching (for IPv4 users behind CG-NAT), this is how TeamViewer (and others) manage to get around CG-NAT.

At some point they’ll have to, as more and more users end up with Plex Relay and it starts costing serious money to provide tunnelling bandwidth.

IPv6 support for those behind DS-Lite connections would also help - we’re slowly (or rapidly, in some countries) moving towards the situation where few home connections have their own un-NATted IPv4 address.

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