Hi! I have a question about running Plex with SONOS. I’m running into some difficulties and hope I can get some guidance here.
I just bought a NAS (QNAP TS-251D) and loaded my music on to it. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass, too, and have successfully integrated Plex and SONOS so that I can play my collection throughout the house.
To accomplish all this, I followed the Plex instructions to allow Remote Access (“To allow your Plex Media Server to be accessed as needed, you need to enable Remote Access for your server. That’s done under Settings > Server > Remote Access in Plex Web App.”).
But remote access for me is a scary proposition. My NAS is for home use. I really have no need to expose it to the outside world and would prefer to avoid the risks of remote access.
The same Plex support article says, “Even if you can’t get Remote Access successfully enabled, you should still be okay. So long as you don’t explicitly disable Remote Access, then your server will still be able to set up a “Relay” connection, even if Remote Access isn’t fully configured.”
Due to the way Sonos is working, it needs a way to see your server from the outside.
It was explained to me that the playback on Sonos hardware is actually initiated by some cloud server which is run by Sonos (the company) themselves – outside of your home network. So there is unfortunately no way to get by without remote access.
One alternative is to avoid the Sonos app. You can use the Plex app to initiate playback. It will discover your speakers and you can cast to them for music playback.
It can’t manage grouping, etc., so you still need to use the Sonos app for that.
The nice thing about the current implementation is that you can use your Plex music collection on a remote Sonos system, or vice versa.
Hahahah OK hold on I have to test that to see it with my own eyes.
Edit: Yup. OK, well, that’s both magical, surprising, a bit annoying actually, more magical than anything, and it explains other things that have confused me. Not that I don’t confuse easily.
If you’re concerned about forwarding a port, you can use the relay connection by enabling remote access and just don’t forward a port. It will appear as though your server is not reachable without the port forward, but relay should still be online an usable. The easiest way to tell if relay is working is if you disable wifi on your phone you are still able to connect and play content via the Plex app (not Sonos).
Casting from the Plex apps does still require some level of remote access so that the service is able to bridge the PMS play queue with Sonos’ queue.
OK, thanks. I’ve done that now. Enabled Remote Access, ticked “Manually Specify Public Port,” put in a port address and verified that I can reach it through the Plex app on my phone (with wifi turned off). SONOS is working in this configuration.
So—and I’m asking this, not stating it—what I’ve done here is made my Plex library remotely accessible but I’ve obfuscated the standard Plex port so to minimize the possibility of illicit access?
The way a Relay connection is working is that it requires both Authentication and encryption.
So the likelyhood for it getting misused is relatively low.
And as a side effect, you get access to your music from anywhere with internet connectivity.
Try putting plexamp on your phone.
If the goal is to not do port forwarding, I think the most important part is the router.
When I manually specify a port in Plex, I still see it making a UPnP request to the router, establishing a port forward, and becoming “Fully accessible”. Manual port configuration in Plex doesn’t disable Plex’s use of UPnP.
Jul 29, 2020 10:40:32.114 [0x80d107300] DEBUG - NAT: UPnP, public address is X.X.X.X
If you are concerned about exposing devices on your network to the Internet, you may also wish to verify that you have UPnP disabled on your router.
I believe what @johnclayton described is that you don’t need any ports forwarded (obfuscated or not), because Plex will fall back to using the Relay, and Sonos will work over the Relay. The Relay is an outbound connection initiated by your Plex Server to the Plex Cloud, instead of being “open” to the Internet.
To accomplish “don’t forward a port”, the important part is UPnP being disabled on the router.
Clearly have a lot to learn, @Volts. I’ve been a software guy all my career and left the networking to someone else. My knowledge is just a bit better than a layman (I at least know UPnP is Universal Plug 'n Play ).
Going to have to dig more into router configuration.
As I say, I don’t have a whole lot of interest in exposing my NAS on the Internet, so I need to get myself confident that I understand what I’m doing.
Hah! Your comment just suddenly helped me understand something.
A lot of network guys really hate UPnP. It has pros and cons and a time and a place. It’s got a storied past. But some people just fundamentally and absolutely hate the entire concept of UPnP.
I’ve never understood why.
It’s because UPnP means “yucky software” can interact with the “pristine network”. With their pristine network. And nobody who “doesn’t understand” should be messing with important things like networks.
Meanwhile I think it’s amazing on home networks in 99% of cases. Luckily the 1% can change it when they want to.
).
