I currently have my Plex server open to the world. I realise that’s probably not best practice, so I’m trying to find a solution that can work for me.
I’ve been looking at cloudflare tunnels and it seems like thats probably what I want. Giving me access to my home server from outside. And it’s free, which is a nice perk
I’ve noticed however that the terms of service don’t allow for video streaming, but is allowed in the paid tier. Before I commit to spending money, I’m curious if it’s even technically possible. Plex tends to phone home to allow users to authenticate and locate their servers, so is that possible through tunnels?
Is this a waste of time? Is there a better solution? How are others dealing with this problem?
I’ve noticed however that the terms of service don’t allow for video streaming
I may be wrong, but are you sure that’s still the case?
There used to be clause 2.8
…Use of the Services for serving video or a disproportionate percentage of pictures, audio files, or other non-HTML content is prohibited, unless purchased separately as part of a Paid Service…
However this has been removed from the current version of ToS: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/
Again, I may be wrong, I am often wrong, it’s possible I missed something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So far this is the only place I’ve seen mentioned regarding video streaming, that is still up anyway:
It’s not entirely clear and I don’t know if this is outdated or not.
I was using their proxy for video streaming for a while, but stopped cause I would rather not risk it. Maybe for personal use it could be ok
If you want a free solution, wireguard and tailscale are your friends. It you’re willing to pay, get a cheap VPS (the one I use for this is from RackNerd for ~$12/yr). It’ll make the process very user friendly if you’re planning to share it with others.
Tailscale is another one I’ve heard of but haven’t looked much into it.
This article put me off a bit. Seems like an unnecessarily complicated setup https://www.jjpdev.com/posts/plex-media-server-tailscale/
That racknerd price for a vps sounds too good to be true!
You don’t actually need to do reverse proxy while using tailscale. You can just use ports as if you’re on a local network.
The price is super low, but it’s been very reliable. Will highly recommend. You can see their current offers here.
You can just use ports as if you’re on a local network.
This is the bit I find confusing. Doesn’t Plex need that port to be open to the outside world?
Or is your setup only open to devices on your private tailscale network and therefore seeing it as local?
If that’s the case, I’ll need to see if tailscale can work with osmc, since that’s what I have running on my raspi behind my tv
I have my plex accessible from outside, but only to plex users I add. It’s not like anyone can just get my IP and watch my content.
There are many crawlers, and I’m confident at least a couple have tried to connect to your server (unless you have an IP firewall, or if you’ve changed Plex Media Sever’s default port, in which case significantly less likely).
I assume it’s not really about them watching content, but to avoid them exploiting any possible PMS bugs.
Plex isn’t allowed on Cloudflare. Itll work, but you’ll get your account flagged.
Use Tailscale instead.
Personally I’d just spin up a wireguard container with a GUI, user friendly and you can add anyone to your VPN in like 2 minutes wherever you are.
Most advanced part would be forwarding port 51820
