I have a network routing question that I am hoping someone here can clarify for me.
My network is setup like this:
CenturyLink fiber modem with built-in wifi → Ethernet to a switch → Ethernet to separate wifi mesh routers and Ethernet to ports throughout the home
Essentially, my wired devices are on a separate LAN than my wireless laptops. The server would be wired at the switch, but the player could be on wifi on the other LAN.
THE QUESTION:
How is this routed through the network? Does Plex need to treat it like a remote connection from outside the local network? Or does the traffic stay entirely on my local network the whole time?
I’m really sorry if this is a dumb question. I know just enough about networking to be slightly dangerous… but not enough to know the answer to something like this.
Plex by default considered different subnets as different networks and will therefore treat it as remote streaming. There have been occurrences when users with a bad remote access configuration ended up streaming indirectly through a Plex relay server when the communication was actually supposed to happen inside their (many) home networks. This, however, is more of an exception – even if the communication is treated as remote, that doesn’t mean data is routed outside your home network (unless you end up with that indirect connection).
With a Plex Pass you have the option to tell Plex which networks to treat as LAN network.
See LAN networks in the support article on advanced network settings of your PMS.
The question is: is this intentionally, due to e.g. security considerations
or is it an side-effect of adding the mesh router?
If it is not intended, you could find a way to configure the mesh network to behave as if it was a regular part of your (wired) network and not separate. But that depends on the mesh main router.
I have all of my IoT devices connected to the top level CenturyLink router, but all my PCs on the mesh network. It keeps the IoT (less secure) devices separate from the computers.
My main TV in the media room is an LG OLED and it has a great Plex app. So that can actually just be hard wired so it is on the same LAN. But there are other times where I’d be using Chromecast, so it’s on WiFi.
You mean physical routing, correct? I believe that is ok, but not completely sure. Both the mesh router and the other router are both connected to the same Netgear switch. Ultimately, all the traffic from the mesh system gets routed through the switch, into the other LAN, then out to the internet. So, I’m hoping that means that the two can communicate. I’ll try inputting what you indicated. Thanks!
Sorry, I have no idea how this router is working or what features it provides. You will have to take a look at its manual or ask in a support forum dedicated to it.
No problem. Thank you for all your help to this point. I appreciate it! Plex is freaking awesome… I just got a lifetime Plex Pass… looking forward to learning a lot more about it!
I have also just started using Plex and have my network intentionally segmented into multiple subnets for security reasons. The basic requirement to make this work is that the Plex server has to be reachable via IP unicast by all the players, i.e. each player needs to be able to establish a TCP connection to the Plex server IP address and port 32400.
In the case of my network, that meant putting in firewall rules in my router to let that happen, but I can’t speak to your particular network scenario.
I’m blocking any other kind of communication between the subnets, so this is all that’s strictly required.
