VPN for Download Station but not Plex

[temperdu]

Typical usecase/prerequisites :

• Plex media server needs to be easily accessible from anywhere (with port forwarding) so not behind a VPN
• Download Station behind a secured proxy/VPN
• Download Station has to stop if the VPN connection falls

Can a QNAP (4.3.3) do that easily ? By "easily", I mean with hacks that would need to be re-done after a software upgrade.

Background : I'm currently relying on a Raspberry Pi and hard drives so as to share files, media library via Plex, and download behind a VPN. This setup has no data loss protection but I used to rely on an Amazon Cloud Storage unlimited plan (with files encryption, of course). Since ACS unlimited plans stop, I'll switch to an all-local thing setup at least a minimal protection against a hard-drive failure. So I'm now looking forward buying a NAS and the TS-453Bmini is the only 4-bay which is compact enough to fit in my electrical cabinet.

With my RPi, I did that with typical route-up.sh and down.sh scripts, along with a custom IP table, but if I buy a NAS, I precisely don't want do such things.

[QNAPDanielFL]

If you use VPN client on your QNAP NAS, that should not interfere with Plex. My understanding is that VPN client does not affect traffic from the NAS to your PC but only traffic from NAS to world wide web. Plex streams from your NAS to your PC and should not be affected by VPN client. I have also heard that Plex bypasses VPNs.

As to the question of whether the download will continue if you lose your VPN connection, I am not sure but I think it will continue.

[gggplaya]

Since he's talking about port forwarding with plex, I assume that he does want to use PLEX outside the home.

Most QNAP NAS's have 2 ethernet ports. They both have different MAC addresses, so I would think it's possible to connect both at the same time and get different IP addresses, though I haven't tried. You could then use virtualization station to create a linux virtual machine and run your downloading client in that virtual machine. Then attach something like https://www.anonabox.com/buy-anonabox-pro.html to that ethernet port. You can assign the ethernet port to that virtual machine using the virtual switch. Or you can run your vpn client software directly on the virtual machine without the need for the anonabox.

Or simply use your raspberry pi to do all your downloading, and simply use the samba as the directory where it downloads to.

[ensignvorik]

I have my NAS permantly connected to VPN to do downloads via Transmission.

I can access my NAS via myqnapcloud on it's proper WAN IP address no problem, so I'd maybe suggest setting plex up to point towards your myqnapcloud.com subdomain, or any other sort of DDNS service that points to your external WAN IP.