PLEX - Port Forwarding with FreeNAS

[Hunter Norman]

Hello,
I'm having some trouble with something, as I'm new to FreeNAS but a long time PLEX user. I've setup a headless freeNAS server on on old computer and I've been using the Plex media server on FreeNAS for months now, it works perfectly. However, I just recently needed to access PLEX remotely and ran into some issues. First an indirect connection, but now no access at all. Here are my steps so far (Using a Netgear R6300 AC router):

• In my router I reserved my freeNAS server IP and my Plex JAIL IP so they are static (My Host computer's ethernet and wireless IPs are also static)
• In PLEX, under settings > remote access, I set the port to 32400
• On the router settings, I went to port triggering/forwarding and set a forward that I named for PLEX, putting 32400 as all 4 internal and external port spaces, and then I put the IP for my PLEX jail as the IP address there (again, I reserved this as static in the router)
• On the FreeNAS web GUI, I went into my PLEX jail under settings, the IPV4 is correct there and my router gateway IP is set under IPV4 gateway.
• UPnP is turned off in the router and NAT is unchecked in the jail configuration

I'm hoping that is detailed enough to start, as I've gone through so many of these steps countless times now and just can't seem to get the remote access enabled. Thanks for any help!

 

[saikee]

I believe Plex wants your internal port to be 32400 which should be same for both Start and End ports. This is for Plex servers I believe. You should use a different port for the external port which is related to your router. Plex documentation recommends a range of values you can use.

The static IP inside the router isn't truly static address that you can called up as having one requiring an upgrade from a domestic to business account in UK.

AFAIK you should be able to access your FreeNAS server contents using Plex plugin as I have done so with friends in Norway, Australia and Canada with any PC, tablet or smart phones of either Apple or Android. For uninterrupted streaming the device needs wire Internet.

 

[nojohnny101]

Sounds like you have most everything setup correctly but obviously something is not correct with your port forward. When you go into the GUI of plex, server settings, remote access; does it say that your serve is reachable from outside? click the retry button to confirm. If not, then you have a problem.

My settings on my router has the following parameters:
- External port = one that i chose (reference what @saikee said above for plex recommended ports)
- internal prot = 32400
- internal IP = static IP of your plex jail that you setup in the jail settings

NOTE: I tried looking a bit if your router but I have a TP-Link router and their documentation is a bit confusing as it has a setting for "port triggering" which one would think would be the proper place to setup what I just described but it wasn't until I entered the above information into the "virtual servers" section of my routers settings that the port forward correctly started to function. So make sure that you are setting the port forward in the correct section of your router's settings.

 

[Hunter Norman]

I actually tried with 50000 as the external, and when I hit retry I got a success message in plex. After about 10 or 15 seconds it said it failed again

 

[toyebox]

Hello,
I'm having some trouble with something, as I'm new to FreeNAS but a long time PLEX user. I've setup a headless freeNAS server on on old computer and I've been using the Plex media server on FreeNAS for months now, it works perfectly. However, I just recently needed to access PLEX remotely and ran into some issues. First an indirect connection, but now no access at all. Here are my steps so far (Using a Netgear R6300 AC router):

• In my router I reserved my freeNAS server IP and my Plex JAIL IP so they are static (My Host computer's ethernet and wireless IPs are also static)
• In PLEX, under settings > remote access, I set the port to 32400
• On the router settings, I went to port triggering/forwarding and set a forward that I named for PLEX, putting 32400 as all 4 internal and external port spaces, and then I put the IP for my PLEX jail as the IP address there (again, I reserved this as static in the router)
• On the FreeNAS web GUI, I went into my PLEX jail under settings, the IPV4 is correct there and my router gateway IP is set under IPV4 gateway.
• UPnP is turned off in the router and NAT is unchecked in the jail configuration

I'm hoping that is detailed enough to start, as I've gone through so many of these steps countless times now and just can't seem to get the remote access enabled. Thanks for any help!

-So are you able to access it from outside your LAN at all? Or just with an indirect connection? Is it saying indirect connection or unsecured connection?

-have you tried anything like this: http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/ to test your port? (verifying the ip it auto generates is your correct external ip)

-Just to be sure, you aren't behind any sort of vpn connection, are you?

-Have you tried setting DHCP for your jail and forwarding the ports to whatever IP is assigned?

 

[Hunter Norman]

At one time it was indirect connection, but now i seem to get nothing at all. That site seems to generate my correct external IP, but my router is set to get IP from ISP. I have a netgear R6300 router, no modem. It's fiber optic internet so the line runs straight into it. No VPN on this computer, just my laptop but it's been disabled for 2 weeks now. DHCP was unchecked in my jail configuration so I set my IPv4 to DHCP so that it would enable it, which it did, but after 2 minutes I couldn't even load my PMS online.

 

[toyebox]

Just to make sure, you restarted your jail after setting DHCP, and got the new IP and tried accessing that IP like: 192.168.0.33:32400/web ? Or whatever IP you got.

You can't access your Plex remotely, locally or both now?

 

[Hunter Norman]

Sorry, I wasn't even aware of the restart command, haha I'm still obviously new to the FreeNas world. I just reset it to DHCP and restarted the jail so I was able to access it again, via address and FreeNAS GUI successfully. Now, this time the remote access show enabled for about 15 seconds or so and then reverted. So yes, I can access everything locally perfectly fine, just having remote issues still. But after setting the jail to DHCP, it still keeps the IP from before which is what I have port forwarded in my router. In router settings, I have 32400 as internal and external start/end ports (so all 4 fields) and then the IP from my DHCP jail configuration.

 

[toyebox]

Gotcha. No biggy! We were all new at once. If I were you I would clear the DHCP lease for that IP in your router and set a static IP for that Mac address via the router as well. Usually there is a a spot to set static IPs via MAC addresses.

Also, that website I posted, you should put in the port 32400 and make sure your external IP is set in there and click check. It will tell you if its open or closed. If needed , I can try to do some sort of remote assistance with you in a couple hours

 

[nightshade00013]

If the jail is still getting the OLD ip address reboot the router and the FreeNAS completely. It's holding on to the old ip do to some goofyness that happens at times. Had the same problem and it's just an oddity that happens.

And just for problem solving sake check this out https://portforward.com/netgear/r6300/ and make sure you got everything right.