Making Plex Accessible Outside the Network

[Br3tt96]

I moved into a new place and just got new router. Linksys AC 1750. My Ping is 9, Download is 100, and Upload is 100 as well. I have watched a few videos about port forwarding and have set my server as with manually set port on plex enabled. 

 

External port: 32401

Internal port: 32400

Protocol: Both

Device IP the IP of my local pc: 192.168.1.106 and have set that as a static on in my router settings with DHCP reservation. 

 

Now, I disabled the firewall on both the server and router, but still won't give access outside the network. I thought maybe I had a double nat, but when I go to http://whatismyip.host/my-ip-address-details both ip addresses are matching. Any other solutions? 

[Lurick]

Why external 32401 and not 32400?

[Br3tt96]

16 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Why external 32401 and not 32400?

external 32400 doesn't work either, and was just trying something else.

[Lurick]

How are you trying to access it? Just turning off wifi on the phone and using cellular?

You accessing it via the external IP directly?

[Br3tt96]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

How are you trying to access it? Just turning off wifi on the phone and using cellular?

You accessing it via the external IP directly?

Probably not accessing it via the external ip directly. Just through the app via cell data

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, Br3tt96 said:

Probably not accessing it via the external ip directly. Just through the app via cell data

What does the plex settings page look like?

Anything similar to this?

 

[Br3tt96]

Just now, Lurick said:

What does the plex settings page look like?

Anything similar to this?

 

 

Looks exactly like your's, but obviously a different local port ip and mine says Not avaible outside your network

[dalekphalm]

On 8/19/2018 at 2:34 PM, Br3tt96 said:

Looks exactly like your's, but obviously a different local port ip and mine says Not avaible outside your network

You need to find an open port. Sounds like your ISP might be blocking the port range you're trying to use.

 

Try setting 8080 instead, and port forwarding that.

[Br3tt96]

9 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You need to find an open port. Sounds like your ISP might be blocking the port range you're trying to use.

 

Try setting 8080 instead, and port forwarding that.

Didn't work

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Br3tt96 said:

Didn't work

What modem are you using? Is the modem also a router/gateway?

[Br3tt96]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

What modem are you using? Is the modem also a router/gateway?

Have no idea. It’s an apartment complex that just has an Ethernet from the wall, and I just plug the router into that lol

 

Router is a Linksys ac1750

[beersykins]

On 8/19/2018 at 12:57 PM, Br3tt96 said:

I thought maybe I had a double nat, but when I go to http://whatismyip.host/my-ip-address-details both ip addresses are matching.

That doesn't rule out double NAT, that just means both of your PCs have the same internet connection.

 

What does the WAN/Internet IP say in your Linksys settings?

 

Usually it's just a matter of port forward, the service actually listening on the server and system firewall.  Occasionally there's a router level firewall to open but usually the port forward function will auto make a rule for you.  Otherwise ez-pz unless you're behind some other shenanigans like a NAT or CGNAT layer from the apartment/ISP.

[Br3tt96]

5 minutes ago, beersykins said:

That doesn't rule out double NAT, that just means both of your PCs have the same internet connection.

 

What does the WAN/Internet IP say in your Linksys settings?

 

Usually it's just a matter of port forward, the service actually listening on the server and system firewall.  Occasionally there's a router level firewall to open but usually the port forward function will auto make a rule for you.  Otherwise ez-pz unless you're behind some other shenanigans like a NAT or CGNAT layer from the apartment/ISP.

Why would I be looking at exactly in the wan/internet up in the router?

[dalekphalm]

15 minutes ago, Br3tt96 said:

Have no idea. It’s an apartment complex that just has an Ethernet from the wall, and I just plug the router into that lol

 

Router is a Linksys ac1750

Ah. I can almost guarantee that you're experiencing "Double NAT". NAT = Network Address Translation.

 

NAT is what converts your singular WAN (external) IP Address of the modem, to the multiple LAN (local/internal) IP Addresses of each of your devices (Phones, computers, game consoles, etc).

 

The firewall is part of (simplified massively) NAT, or at least inter-related.

 

Port Forwarding is a service that takes port calls from your WAN IP, and sends them to the correct IP address inside the local network.

 

So your apartment complex likely has a router somewhere that is serving out IP Addresses.

 

To get external Plex working, you basically need to talk to whoever is in charge of your internet, and try and convince them to setup a port forwarding rule to the IP they've assigned to you inside the complex.

 

Although to be honest, this may well be outside of the skill set of the person managing it.

[Br3tt96]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Ah. I can almost guarantee that you're experiencing "Double NAT". NAT = Network Address Translation.

 

NAT is what converts your singular WAN (external) IP Address of the modem, to the multiple LAN (local/internal) IP Addresses of each of your devices (Phones, computers, game consoles, etc).

 

The firewall is part of (simplified massively) NAT, or at least inter-related.

 

Port Forwarding is a service that takes port calls from your WAN IP, and sends them to the correct IP address inside the local network.

 

So your apartment complex likely has a router somewhere that is serving out IP Addresses.

 

To get external Plex working, you basically need to talk to whoever is in charge of your internet, and try and convince them to setup a port forwarding rule to the IP they've assigned to you inside the complex.

 

Although to be honest, this may well be outside of the skill set of the person managing it.

I read somewhere about L2TP servers. Is that possibly an option? I'm trying nearly everything to get it to go outside my network. I know with plex pass, you can sync cloud media, but I have no idea if that's even remotely an option.

[beersykins]

26 minutes ago, Br3tt96 said:

Why would I be looking at exactly in the wan/internet up in the router?

If it's a private address (10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, 192.168.x.x) then you're behind double NAT.  If your Linksys says its interface is the same IP you get from any IP checking website, then you aren't behind double NAT and there's some other configuration problem.

[Br3tt96]

8 hours ago, beersykins said:

If it's a private address (10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, 192.168.x.x) then you're behind double NAT.  If your Linksys says its interface is the same IP you get from any IP checking website, then you aren't behind double NAT and there's some other configuration problem.

The linksys router is harder to navigate than my asus one back home. Was having a hard time finding the ip on the router lol

[dalekphalm]

On 2018-08-20 at 10:59 PM, Br3tt96 said:

I read somewhere about L2TP servers. Is that possibly an option? I'm trying nearly everything to get it to go outside my network. I know with plex pass, you can sync cloud media, but I have no idea if that's even remotely an option.

A VPN would work, assuming you could get the server working. 

 

You would setup a VPN server on your network, then connect to it remotely. There are a few different vpn protocols you could use, including L2TP and OpenVPN. 

 

Once connected, the app should find your plex server as if you were locally connected. 

[Br3tt96]

10 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

A VPN would work, assuming you could get the server working. 

 

You would setup a VPN server on your network, then connect to it remotely. There are a few different vpn protocols you could use, including L2TP and OpenVPN. 

 

Once connected, the app should find your plex server as if you were locally connected. 

So how would one go about doing that? My linksys router menu is super confusing compared to my old asus one

[dmaes]

12 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

A VPN would work, assuming you could get the server working. 

 

You would setup a VPN server on your network, then connect to it remotely. There are a few different vpn protocols you could use, including L2TP and OpenVPN. 

 

Once connected, the app should find your plex server as if you were locally connected. 

 

2 hours ago, Br3tt96 said:

So how would one go about doing that? My linksys router menu is super confusing compared to my old asus one

A VPN server will not work either if you're behind a double NAT. As long as there is the apartments NAT between your router and the outside internet, you cannot acces your router and with it your whole network.

 

If you really want, you can setup a VPN server on a VPS and connect both your plex-server and phone to the VPN on your VPS. But that's getting really complicated.

[dalekphalm]

28 minutes ago, 101dmrs said:

 

A VPN server will not work either if you're behind a double NAT. As long as there is the apartments NAT between your router and the outside internet, you cannot acces your router and with it your whole network.

 

If you really want, you can setup a VPN server on a VPS and connect both your plex-server and phone to the VPN on your VPS. But that's getting really complicated.

With VPN servers, you can use ports like 443 or 8080 (or even just port 80 itself depending on what else is on the network). 

 

But with that in mind, yes you’re still correct - since you would still need port forwarding done on the primary WAN router to tell it where to send the VPN packets.

 

@Br3tt96 realistically I think you’ll need to contact your landlord and see if you can get in touch with the person managing the network. 

 

If you can talk to them, explain what you’re trying to do, and then what you need them to do (eg: port forward 32400 to the IP assigned to your router). Then at your router, you’ll port forward the same port again to the IP of your Plex Server. 

 

This will only work with their cooperation.