I am running a Plex server on Windows 10. I use airVPN on that computer, which gives it a different public IP address. If I run the Plex server before starting the VPN, the server recognizes my actually Public IP and then I can start the VPN and remote access still works. Eventually it usually updates it to the VPN IP address, which makes the server think it isn’t accessible when it would be if it used my actually IP Address, which I use for multiple other servers I run. I can still connect to that computer remotely with my regular public IP for things like Remote Desktop and other servers even when the VPN is on as LAN connections are not blocked by my VPN and are routed to that computer from the router. I have tried to do some research but don’t really know where to start. I can still remote access Plex but it says on the server remote access is not accessible and it doesn’t seem to work nearly as well. Just wondering if I could force it to use my ISP IP address or if anybody had a similar problem or could help me out. Thanks!
I have a static internal ip on the windows computer and port forwarding is setup for the Plex server. The problem is that the Plex server thinks that the IP address needed to connect to the server is the VPN IP address and not my actual IP address provided by my actual ISP.
as i understand it plex does not lke to be on the same server as a VPN if your VPN and ISP support split tunneling that is what you need in essance you need to setup most likely in your os a static route to bypass the VPN for plex…
Hey, I just wanted you to know that I was trying to figure it out through the AIRvpn app, which is possible if you add all the proper domains but I found an application that was very simple and worked immediately for exactly this purpose and should work with most other VPN providers. https://thronic.com/Downloads/VPN-Bypass/
Don’t know how to solve in Windows but it’s trivial in *BSD (and therefore also MacOS and similar on linux)… one sets up a new routing table and start plex within that with ‘setfib 2’ this routes all network traffic for the application into the plex routing table - however the caveat is you have to have a new IP for the plex routing table and virtual interface… this in itself is also trivial using RFC1918 space and port forwarding.
IIRC Window can do this also, but how, I don’t know as I’m not a windows person.
The alternative is to start plex after the VPN startup - but all connections will go over the VPN…
Lastly go to advanced settings (plex) for the network layer and tell plex the IP and port it should listen on… unless the VPN is denying split tunnelling this should continue to work… The caveat to that is if all your traffic is to be routed over the VPN (ie default route) then your plex will follow and the only answer is additional routing tables.
Hope that made sense (does to me, but could be a little garbled to others )
No(well not by the web interface), but you do tell it what is seen externally - the plex server will by default bind to all addresses… periodically it will check the external ip connectivity - the chances are this is getting the new IP and therefore it sees the new (VPN) ip as where it should attempt the external connections from. Putting in the real IP and port will override this behavior and it will always attempt to check the external auth (and publish that to clients) from the IP and port you tell it that is external.
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