Plex: Direct Play Across VLANs? (no transcoding)


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I had this working before. I'm having trouble getting Direct Play/Stream across VLANs. My Plex server is on the 192.168.10.X subnet and I'd like to add some Plex client devices that are on the 192.168.20.X subnet. The devices on that subnet / VLAN20 are showing as "Remote" still. And it's causing it to transcode. 

 

in this test, Client on left showing "Remote" and transcoding. The others are on the same subnet as the server and Direct is working:

 

shows.jpg.b925a7b45f5394afd86128b4ec98a77b.jpg

 

Here is what I entered in the Network tab for LAN Networks:  (the device i'm testing is at 192.168.20.19)

 

2053732818_lannetworks.thumb.JPG.f674f206d0d3a5f963ee163cd76801b6.JPG

 

I have firewall rules opening the ports for this client for Plex. (This has worked in the past)

 

rules.JPG.d68aaf8cfcc32ecbf5f2196dc63b06b0.JPG

 

What am I missing here? 

 

 

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Hi

 

Maybe check your Plex logs for network parsing errors.

 

My guess would be that your "LAN NETWORKS" setting in Plex may need to be set as follows:

 

192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24

 

or if you want to restrict your second subnet to only one IP:

 

192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.19/32

 

(because technically, "192.168.20.19" is not a network but an IP). 

 

I hope this helps.

Best,

OP

 

Edited by Opawesome
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2 minutes ago, Opawesome said:

Hi

 

Maybe check your Plex logs for network parsing errors.

 

My guess would be that you "LAN NETWORKS" setting in Plex may need to be set as follows:

 

192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24

 

(because technically, "192.168.20.19" is not a network but an IP). 

 

I hope this helps.

Best,

OP

 

 

 

yep, thats it. thats how i have it configured and it works perfect

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13 hours ago, Opawesome said:

Hi

 

Maybe check your Plex logs for network parsing errors.

 

My guess would be that your "LAN NETWORKS" setting in Plex may need to be set as follows:

 

192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24

 

 

This was exactly it! I set the networks to "192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24" like you said and it's showing "Local" now. 

 

Thanks so much! 😄

 

I don't know why I have such a hard time understanding networking stuff. I have really complex firewall rules, separating all my VLANs and poking holes where needed with ports. I set this up on an EdgerouterX. It works but I only figured it out through trial and error. But i still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. 

 

For example I never know if I'm to add an IP and a port to the "source" or "destination" tab. I usually just try one or the other til I get it working. The network address format like you listed above is also very confusing. I never know which format to use. 

 

I added an HDHomerun to the network lately and couldn't get it to work across secure VLANs. So I decided to put everything on the same subnet 🤷‍♂️

 

Any recommendations on how to get a better handle on of all this?  

 

 

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14 minutes ago, adminmat said:

 

This was exactly it! I set the networks to "192.168.10.0/24,192.168.20.0/24" like you said and it's showing "Local" now. 

 

Thanks so much! 😄

 

I don't know why I have such a hard time understanding networking stuff. I have really complex firewall rules, separating all my VLANs and poking holes where needed with ports. I set this up on an EdgerouterX. It works but I only figured it out through trial and error. But i still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. 

 

For example I never know if I'm to add an IP and a port to the "source" or "destination" tab. I usually just try one or the other til I get it working. The network address format like you listed above is also very confusing. I never know which format to use. 

 

I added an HDHomerun to the network lately and couldn't get it to work across secure VLANs. So I decided to put everything on the same subnet 🤷‍♂️

 

Any recommendations on how to get a better handle on of all this?  

 

 

You are welcome. This is not easy indeed. You need to put some efforts to get it. But once you get it, you realise that is not that hard. And trial and error is the way to go anyway.

 

For network masks, I personally had to watch videos on Youtube dedicated to the subject in order to be able to understand the concept. See for exemple a video like this one

 

 

Frankly, I too would like to setup vlans on my network but do not feel confident enough yet hahaha !

 

Anyway, good luck with your setup ! ;-) 

 

Best,

OP

Edited by Opawesome
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12 minutes ago, Opawesome said:

 

Frankly, I too would like to setup vlans on my network but do not feel confident enough yet hahaha !

 

Anyway, good luck with your setup ! ;-) 

 

Best,

OP

Thanks for the video. I'm going to watch it now. It took me weeks to get all the VLANs to work properly. Lots and lots of pinging tests. Change this > pint test > change that > ping test. LOL. But finally got it working. Many, many posts asking questions on the UBNT forums. 😄

 

One thing that made it very confusing was pairing an Edgerouter with a Unifi switch. You would think they'd play together nicely but making them work together was a challenge due to the differing terminology, menus etc. I'd like to start over with a more compatible system. 

 

Now I only have some IoT devices on a separate VLAN. I probably over did it for just a home network. 

What router / switch system do you use? 

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3 minutes ago, adminmat said:

Thanks for the video. I'm going to watch it now. It took me weeks to get all the VLANs to work properly. Lots and lots of pinging tests. Change this > pint test > change that > ping test. LOL. But finally got it working. Many, many posts asking questions on the UBNT forums. 😄

 

One thing that made it very confusing was pairing an Edgerouter with a Unifi switch. You would think they'd play together nicely but making them work together was a challenge due to the differing terminology, menus etc. I'd like to start over with a more compatible system. 

 

Now I only have some IoT devices on a separate VLAN. I probably over did it for just a home network. 

What router / switch system do you use? 

I can relate to that ;)

 

I have an Edgerouter ER12P. It has 10 ethernet ports, 2 SFP ports and 24V PoE ; therefore I can plug all my network equipment on it, including a Unifi WiFi AP powered by the router's PoE, hence reducing the power consumption.

 

My Unraid server and that router are plugged in into an APC Back-UPS, therefore, in case of power outage, my data is safe and I still have internet and network :D

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That should make it a bit easier to set up your VLANs all on one device. You could easily set up an IoT network and a separate VLAN for friends/family. That's basically what I did starting out. Then I kept adding. One for IPMI with no WAN access for the Supermicro mobo. One for Dockers, VMs etc...

Here is a little diagram I made so I could keep track lol

 

But I'd probably be fine with one network. Unless I'm adding shady IoT devices.

Segregation Drawing (2).png

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1 hour ago, Opawesome said:

You are welcome. This is not easy indeed. You need to put some efforts to get it. But once you get it, you realise that is not that hard. And trial and error is the way to go anyway.

That's true.

 

For about VLAN, it really good to isolate/mulitplex/demultiplex device or link. I connect all thing to switch, so I can change the topology as what I want instead plug/unplug the RJ45. VLAN always work as expected in switch side, but the problem is many server/end device/VPN/service not work well when you cross VLAN ( no matter same or different subnet ).

 

1 hour ago, adminmat said:

I have really complex firewall rules, separating all my VLANs and poking holes where needed with ports.

Most people have a single WAN IP / WAN network, VLAN or not won't increase the security. In most case, it really used to seperate the local device.

 

I setup use single subnet but have 3 VLAN, 2 VLAN were semi seperate ( it seperate in form on TX direction, not RX direction, and it will cross in edge end ). The 3rd VLAN just set as traditional in fully seperate.

 

The reason was I want eliminate the trouble in device/end side, I am not apply VLAN in device side ( except router ), only VLAN in network side.

 

Edited by Vr2Io
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17 minutes ago, adminmat said:

Here is a little diagram I made so I could keep track lol

That is a really nice setup! Exactly what I am aiming at. For now I don't have time to setup anything that complex. I already had some trouble setting up DUAL-WAN (load-balance and failover) on my router 🙂 . But ultimately I will get to it, and I hope your posts on the UBNT forums will help me ;-)

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