PleX asks for credentials when you browse to it via hostname. But won't ask if you visit via IP

The World is Flat Français - French
1

Hi,

An Issue I’ve had over the last few builds/months now but am struggling to pinpoint, just wondering if anyone else has this issue?

Virtual Machine, CentOS7 PleX Server install

IP: 10.10.0.254
Network Guest Mode is enabled for range ‘10.10.0.0/8’ (my lan)
DHCP for all hosts on my network is within this range (being 10.10.0.50-100)

Browsing to: _http://10.10.0.254:32400/web/index.html_ works fine on any PC in the house.

But,

Browsing to: _http://plex:32400/web/index.html_ asks for a login on every PC in the house (Even though in the white-listed subnet 10.10.0.0/8)

Roommates and legitimate guests of my house cannot stroll around PleX without me logging them in, or equally messy, giving them the IP Address to punch in instead.

I have a virtual-host setup on my network for ‘_http://plex/_’ which redirects to ‘_http://plex:32400/web/index.html_’ for Ease of Access and Bookmarking on people’s PCs, but it’s next to useless when people are asked to login.

I could replace the vhost with a redirection to 10.10.0.254 but then the links look messy and I can’t change the hostname later without having to change this manually.

But either way, PleX always sees the same request as always and isn’t aware of this behind the scenes redirection. It really doesn’t like being referred to by it’s hostname and asks for credentials even if you’re on a permitted network range.

Replication instructions:

1. CentOS7 PleX Server
2. A dnsmasq daemon for resolution of the A-Record 'plex' to ${your plex server IP}
3. Whitelist your local IP range for guest access with no credentials within PleX
4. Get asked for them anyway when using 'plex' in the URL vs ${your plex server IP}

Anyone else having this issue or encountered a solution?

2

Somehow this is in ‘categories/bugs-français’ rather than an English bugs category.

Must have clicked the wrong one.

3

You should have posted in English section :wink: You can edit your post and modify please :wink:

4

Apologies, not seeing anywhere in the edit screen allowing me to change the section, only the content and tags.

Might I need to post it again in the correct one?

5

The only supported option when using domain names and not signing in is the computer name as returned by hostname coupled with the whitelisting of the server IP address. This should work with version 1.1.4 onwards of Plex Media Server.

FQDN requires sign in.

6

Thanks for this answer! I realized this recently too

Plex runs on my NAS so nas.internal works but plex.internal/plex/nas does NOT.

Are there any hopes to have support for hostname’s that are not the same as the host machine

7

@ipaqmaster said:
Thanks for this answer! I realized this recently too

Plex runs on my NAS so nas.internal works but plex.internal/plex/nas does NOT.

Are there any hopes to have support for hostname’s that are not the same as the host machine

I would expect hostnames to work if you do authenticate and sign in

8

With this one, it turned out that plex only doesnt-ask-for-a-password if you are accessing via Server-IP, or via the hostname of the box it runs on (can be seen via the output of the hostname command)

If you have an A Record or CNAME defined in your home to make your plex experience nicer/redirect cleanly - ‘plex’ / ‘plex.yourdomain.internal’ will not work, unless the server’s name happens to be that as well. I resorted to using a redirect on my plex server port 80, to the FQDN of the actual servers name. This can also be achieved with a virtualhost pointing to it.