Thank you in advance!
For privacy, I would like to get a VPN.
Define privacy.
Plex already comes with TLS encryption, complete with a commonly accepted encryption certificate, specifically ‘pinned’ to your server.
This will work with any official Plex client (if its hardware is fast enough to decode the encryption).
To use another layer of encryption on top of that is just overkill and won’t work with many plex clients (especially embedded and mobile ones).
I use PIA as well. I think it is the best product out there. The main downside to using a VPN on the same box as your Plex server is you won’t be able to access your plex server from the Internet. You can chromecast with it and stream to other computers locally, but the IP issues around the VPN are a pain. The workaround for me, and I admit it isn’t a good solution for everyone, was to put the plex server on a different box that didn’t have PIA installed. Problem solved.
Hi, I went through a similar dilemma myself when upgrading my plex setup, and I will try and explain you how I chose and what I chose.
The way I understand it is that you want to “anonymize” your server.
This can be done with VPN, and it is possible to use it through the internet as well. However this can be very tricky and will complicate the connection procedure.
If you want to use a VPN and still want people somewhere else on the internet to be able to connect to your server, would mean that they would have to be connected to the same VPN as you, which will require additional setup and possibly even additional hardware from the clients (in case they are using Plex App on a tv or a tv-box etc.)
This will create a very secure and closed network for you and your clients, yes. But it will require more setup from each of your clients and maybe even more importantly, every VPN service has a limit to how many users can be connected at once.
This might not be a problem for you, but for me this was not the right solution.
Instead I ran into reverse proxy. If you have not heard about this, basically what it does is route all traffic on the ports you configure from the clients to your plex server. The advantage of this is that from your clients point of view, all traffic seems to be going to the reverse proxy server and not your own plex server. The proxy server then passes all information to your plex server “behind the clients back” so to say. In order to set this up you will need a server which you rent somewhere (I use libertyVPS, a bit overpriced but all-in for privacy). Once you acquired this you simply need to setup a reverse proxy on the server, which can be done in a couple of minutes using nginx.
As mentioned above Plex does however already have encryption, so you have to make up you mind whether or not this extra layer of privacy is indeed necessary for you.
Hope this gave you some clarifications, otherwise just let me know.
I use AirVPN with the OpenVPN client and it works just fine. Stuff that is adressed local stays in my homenetwork and over the internet also works. The only client that doesn’t work is the FireTV stick but that one stopped working before I got my VPN^^!!
You have to tell AirVPN which port you want to port forward though.
Well in order to run plex with vpn you need to setup vpn on your computer router. check this blog which helped me in setting up vpn for my plex account.
