Remote Access Issues

I have recently developed an issue accessing my remote sharing and am only able to get an indirect connection. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Server Version#:1.14.1.5488
Here is my current setup:

I run a Pfsense 2.4.4 router which I created a TCP/UDP port forward in NAT on the WAN interface with a destination address of WAN, destination port of 32400, NAT redirect IP of the plex server VM which has a static IP of 10.0.2.99 on port 32400. A subsequent rule was automatically created on the firewall allowing any source and any port access to 10.0.2.99 at port 32400. I run pfblocker as well but have allowed all IPs from Ireland as this was my issue when I very first set this up last year. I also have another gateway setup for a Private Internet Access VPN for the majority of the network. To avoid creating problems for plex I initially created an alias for plex.tv and stuck in a firewall rule at the top of the list telling any hits for plex.tv on that VM to use the WAN gateway instead of the default PIA one. This worked perfectly for a long time.

There is no double NAT situation going on and I can see my proper public IP on the plex remote sharing window with the correct IP of 10.0.2.99 on the VM, as well as the port of 32400 being used (I have checked off manually specify public port).

When I activate remote sharing I will briefly get a green check mark showing online and then it goes red and I only can get indirect access for streaming. I have logging enabled on the firewall rule and can see some Ireland IPs showing as allowed access. I also have tried my public IP (75.158.x.x:32400) with the browser on my phone while using data and I can also see that being logged as allowed, but the page will ultimately show failed to load.

To rule out any problems with the windows 10 VM, I created an Ubunutu VM and installed Plex media server on there. I gave it all the same rules only changing the redirect IP and used a different outside port for the forward which was set accordingly in plex, but I still get the same issue on that one too.

Lastly for my trouble shooting this is where my basic knowledge falls short. I don’t quite understand how to read packet captures. I have ran a capture on the WAN interface narrowed down to port 32400 as well as the LAN interface and will include screen shots of the captures here. While doing these I disabled/enabled remote access.

I have also saved the plex logs while disabling/enabling if anyone has some pointers on what to look for in there as well.

So I solved my issue out with a fair amount of trial and error. For anyone else who may find this thread I was able to get it working by changing the default gateway to the WAN instead of PIA (not sure if this really matters bcz all traffic on the LAN not related to plex.tv still goes over PIA). As well as screwing around with my outbound NAT settings. I ended up going with a hybrid selection while making sure I still had a rule set for each network I wanted to be able to use the PIA gateway. I previously had it set to manual selection with basically the same thing. Not sure what happened or why it stopped working all I ever did was run a pfsense update and something must of gotten changed.

Plex has a long history of not playing well with VPN’s. You basically set Plex to circumvent the VPN. Which is pretty much the only way to get plex to work when to run everything else through the VPN. Express VPN which I run, recently added an option for Split Tunneling otherwise you have to do all the hoops required.

TimT

@PhilipJayyFry. I’m trying to restrict the remote access to just several IPs. I’m using a Meraki MX to set the port forwarding. When I allow any remote IPs, remote access works fine. If I restrict it to several IPs, it fails. Does plex have IP addresses that I need to pass-through as well?

Yes aside from only allowing access to specific remote IP’s you will be accessing your server from you will need to allow plex.tv servers as well.
In pfsense this is easily done by just adding an alias, but sorry I’m not familiar with Meraki MX. These are always changing but currently the ones I see it using are:
52.30.248.117
54.72.69.247
54.76.102.118
54.77.150.142
54.154.115.144
54.246.140.185
63.32.24.1
63.32.153.75

What do you mean by setting an alias for plex.tv servers? Is this the dns name plex.tv? Anyways, I entered those IP address in the MX firewall because Meraki does not support dns entries in the MX. Remote access stay green for about 10 seconds before going red.

Thanks.

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