Hello

Note that I am only interested in the technical details and I already have alternative for remote access.

As you may know Plex made some changes recently and remote access became a paid feature.

At first I thought that only people using plex.tv who will be impacted as they are using their relay feature. But I was surprised that accessing the server by its public IP is considered as a remote access (it make sense though).

So I thought that putting Plex behind a reverse proxy in the same network will solve the issue. Plex will see a local connection from the reverse proxy and treat it as a direct access. But still Plex detect that as a remote access. I even tweaked the host and headers passed by reverse proxy with no success.

Plex even consider accessing the server using a local domain as a remote access.

So I tested tailscale, I ran it on the server and tried to access Plex using the assigned IP but my access is considered a remote access. Now I ran tailscale on the client and accessing Plex from it is considered a direct access.

At first I thought Plex was checking the url but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Can someone explain me how does Plex detect remote vs local access?

  • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
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    5 days ago

    There is an obfuscated direct URL that Plex uses. It uses the format (the IP address is an example):

    192-168-0-111.[your Plex server hash].direct.plex.tv:[port]

    This will allow for a direct connection, basically no matter what, though I should disclose that I have a lifetime Plex Pass. I forget how to find the hash, but I’m sure you can look it up.