Apologies if this is the wrong place but i searched for the above and couldn’t find any other discussions, so i thought i would ask a question here
I have Plex media server on a VPS linux all works fine and is quite basic
I installed Home Theatre on my laptop opened it and used https://plex.tv/pin to add the PIN to my server -thats all fine worked a treat, my laptop showed I had been connected to the named server
Now the strange thing (maybe not to you but is strange to me) if i open home theatre I can see my server content and channels no problem, but i can also go into channel preferences and adjust/edit them ? shouldnt this be locked away from users ?
does this mean if i PIN a friend/colleague they could potentially mess with my server channel setup ? isn’t that just reserved for root@ or my primary account to get to/change ?
again apologies if this is the norm but something doesnt appear correct with that being a possibility ?
Just wondered if there was a way (if using same PIN to server) that I could remove access to preferences for added devices ?
@SportsGalore said:
I installed Home Theatre on my laptop opened it and used https://plex.tv/pin to add the PIN to my server
You are not connecting the client to a particular server.
You are connecting it to your plex.tv account.
Now the strange thing (maybe not to you but is strange to me) if i open home theatre I can see my server content and channels no problem, but i can also go into channel preferences and adjust/edit them ? shouldnt this be locked away from users ?
You are using the account of the server owner. As such you are allowed to install channels.
does this mean if i PIN a friend/colleague they could potentially mess with my server channel setup ?
No, they can’t. Unless you give them your plex.tv credentials (which you should never do!)
Your friends use their own plex.tv accounts.
No, they can’t. Unless you give them your plex.tv credentials (which you should never do!)
Your friends use their own plex.tv accounts.
If that was true why can a PINNED client connected to my account get to to preferences via home theatre for the channel ?
see attached screenshot, why would a non admin device (separate device only using a PIN) have access to change preferences on a channel I added on my account ? they don’t need my credentials, they are in home theatre connected
basic non related device has access to this even if not the OWNER as shown, they don’t need a Plex account to be added only a device PIN given to me. I guess there is less security on adding devices than there is to adding users ?
Allow Channels
Shared users can access channels installed on your Plex Media Server when the option is enabled and they’re using a supported Plex app.
Note: Not all Plex apps support shared channels. In addition, all installed channels will be shared and shared users will not have their own settings for any channels that have preferences.
but i guess it works differently for devices in that case…devices can get to preferences & make changes as shown above.
@SportsGalore said:
If that was true why can a PINNED client connected to my account get to to preferences via home theatre for the channel ?
Because you pinned it to your own account. And your account is the owner of your server. And as such the administrator.
That being said, there might be the special case of ‘settings for particular channels’ which might be visible if you share your channels.
If you indeed use such channels, the only option is to not share them with users who might be tempted to tamper with the settings or who might glean user credentials from there.
account owner being able to tick “hide preferences option to all shared channels on any connected device/user” would resolve all this , (unless I can get 2 on 1 server, 1 admin, 1 basic user ? ) and use the basic restricted to PIN to account/shared items etc
so we are basically saying we can share with people but it has very limited security functions on what that person/device can or cannot do whilst connected and it’s mainly down to trust ? i much prefer active directory haha not sure how I can get around this, very risky…i don’t fancy having to re set main preferences every time it gets changed by someone/device connected…
@SportsGalore said:
account owner being able to tick “hide preferences option to all shared channels on any connected device/user” would resolve all this
This is not possible.
, (unless I can get 2 on 1 server, 1 admin, 1 basic user ? ) and use the basic restricted to PIN to account/shared items etc
I think you still have some misconceptions how sharing in Plex works.
Yes you can share your server out to separate user accounts. In fact this is recommended if it is not your own family/household you are sharing with. It is described in the link I set above
The “family” case on the other hand is covered by Plex Home. Only this enables ‘fast user switching’ where you can quickly change user accounts on a client device.
If a client device is not signed in to a plex account which is part of your Plex Home, he cannot switch and escalate his privileges, not even with a PIN.
so we are basically saying we can share with people but it has very limited security functions on what that person/device can or cannot do whilst connected
The special case I talked about applies only to channel sharing. And this is hardly the main use case for Plex.
Plex is about your own media. And any user who is not the server owner has restricted abilities what he can do with these. (No download, no editing, no server management/monitoring at all)
I think you still have some misconceptions how sharing in Plex works. - yes agreed I expected as the owner after spending a couple of days setting up to be able to have much more control over what anyone connected to my account/server does apart from very basic show channels or don’t, and set how media shows, what about the simple read only access ? so as it stands anyone can join someones plex and just mess up their preferences ? doesn’t sound like the best sharing security to be honest.
The special case I talked about applies only to channel sharing. And this is hardly the main use case for Plex. - This is all i (as a plex client) want to use it for…I don’t need lots of media, I want to share added channels without worry about things being changed/adjusted…not much to ask in this day & age for such a company. and it seems the functions around security /device/user management especially around channels is very very minimal. show or don’t…wow impressive settings haha, i’ll leave it here, thanks for your thoughts.
@SportsGalore said:
This is all i (as a plex client) want to use it for…I don’t need lots of media, I want to share added channels without worry about things being changed/adjusted…not much to ask in this day & age for such a company. and it seems the functions around security /device/user management especially around channels is very very minimal.** show or don’t…
This can be closed now, fixed this myself using JSON to hide the preferences folder in all channels now they cannot be seen/touched or edited! please close this thread, cheers
