Does anyone have experience running their Plex server through the IPVanish VPN?
I have followed all of the steps to set-up a static IP but when I turn on my VPN, remote play is disabled.
I appreciate the help in advance.
Why is everyone these days trying to run plex through a VPN?
I think running plex through a VPN is a symptom of running a plex stack (radarr, sonarr, transmisison(or something), ombi) sort of things all on the same unit and… for whatever reasons, refusing to do virtualization or docker or -something- to just seperate the services.
So they run absolutely everything through 1 OS and slap a VPN so they can torrent without worrying.
My response will pretty much always be “Just VM stuff or separate it in whichever way you choose”
Especially since the only item that benefits from a VPN would be the torrenter which can be stuffed into a linux VM running barely any resources to cope.
- Install a VM Controller/hypervisor/whatever.
- Virtualbox is super user friendly but very basic. It will work though.
- Make a Linux VM
- Ubuntu or something simple, even windows if you want or something. Whatever transmission will work on, windows might be best if you don’t want to fuck with permissions too much
- Install torrent-client-here on windows-or-linux VM. Fill in those blanks
- You’ll have to have some semblance of sharing folders so the VM can stuff whatever it downloads into a folder that Plex/Sonarr/Radarr/etc can read from. Hopefully you can figure out sharing a folder over the network (or with virtualbox shared folders, that still a thing?)
- Connect whatever you want to connect, Sonarr, Radarr, Whateverarr to the torrent-client-here which is installed on the VM
- Transmission has a “web client” which sonarr/radarr can connect to, fairly straight forward, just need permissions set right in Transmission.
- Install the VPN client on the VM.
Done.
Now you have a virtual machine with whatever resources you might need to give it operating with a wall between it and your computer. VPN works on the VM but has zero impact on anything else.
Plex/Sonarr/Radarr/Whatevarr all on one install, no need for getting ports working for anything or weird network play.
UPSIDE : No VPN shenanigans.
DOWNSIDE : Small overhead to run an OS within an OS, some work to setup and connect.
ALTERNATIVE : Install Docker, linuxserver all the premade images, connect to each and point at each other like a mexican standoff and learn a ton about docker along the way. It a lot more work though and its easier to play with virtualbox to begin with.
Down the line : Setup Ombi for a request system, slap Caddy in front of it and buy a domain to point at yourself. Non-static can use a ddns so it knows where to go.
Move stuff to docker, start an obsessive habit of homelab computers, start hiding finances from the wife in a constant and overbearing amount of stress that stops you from sleeping… finding work more peaceful than returning home with the overwhelming pressure that maybe… just maybe… she found out today.
See you in /r/homelab if some of that sounds like fun though. We can be abrasive sometimes but it just covers up the dead inside aura.
/r/techsupport is the best place for questions though, /r/homelab is much more about discussion and server questions/complaints/issues than general PC stuff.