It seems the Plex development team thinks that only RFC1918 addresses should be used on LAN networks. This is wrong for many reasons and I’m not sure why such a decisions would be made. I’m a network architect professional and I can guarantee you that the only special meaning for RFC1918 addresses is that they can be used by anyone on their local networks. I’ve read comments from Plex Developers that claim you should only run RFC1918 addresses in local networks but that’s false. You can’t route RFC1918 addresses on the internet is the restriction. This allows anyone to use addresses from this space for their own needs.
The RFC1918 address space and NAT came along when it was shown that the internet was running out of IPv4 space. I know lots of people and companies that own their own IPv4 space and run it both on their local and public networks.
With IPv6 deployments coming along, you will see a switch back to public addresses used all the way to the local client network.
It frustrates me that I have renumber a network just so PMS believes its local for clients. If this is your default choice in the software, couldn’t you allow for adding networks to the definition? I don’t code for a living but I do code and I don’t think that would be hard to add. I guess its too corner case to be concerned about. At least the responses from Plex Developers to customers that suffer from this decisions seems to indicate it isn’t something that Plex is concerned with fixing.
Let’s put it this way… Plex won’t be able to guess your network architecture and addressing. However… you can tell Plex what to consider part of your home network!
Settings > Server > Network > LAN networks (hidden/advanced setting)
Comma separated list of IP addresses or IP/netmask entries for networks that will be considered to be on the local network when enforcing bandwidth restrictions. If set, all other IP addresses will be considered to be on the external network and will be subject to external network bandwidth restrictions. If left blank, only the server’s subnet is considered to be on the local network.
The developers chose RFC1918 as the standard for HTTP->HTTPS claiming of a server.
They knew, because RFC1918, is not routed, everything found on the subnet would indeed be on the LAN. This is a very simple delineation between LAN and WAN.
It also allows for easy determination of LAN, WAN, and CGNAT scenarios.
While there might be other reasons and uses, this is what they chose.
I suppose I should proof read more when I’m tired. My previous post sounds horrible.
I see the decision as wrong, have thought so for a long time. I just finally decided to post my opinion for whatever good or bad its worth. Not intending to tick anyone off. I understand that we can put the local network in to avoid WAN restrictions but why doesn’t it also make Plex understand that clients on that network are “local” instead of “remote”?
With IPv6, are you also going to expect people to use the private network segment? In the deployments I’ve been part of, this isn’t done. Each house will get a /64 to use in public space.
