Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

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brantonomous
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Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by brantonomous »

I'm incredibly new to this and I'm having trouble with enabling remote access.

I've been running Plex off of my PC for a little while now and I wanted to make the jump to a media server that I can have always on. I've managed to get all of my media files over to my NAS and I can login to PLEX successfully through QTS. Previously, the connection ran directly out of my modem to my PC and I never had remote access problems. Now, I'm running both ethernet lines from a gigabit network switch (I did the whole port trunking thing and I believe I did it correctly).

In the Remote Access section of the PLEX settings, I get the "Not available outside your network" message and I'm very confused as to what to do. I've gone into the network and virtual settings of QTS and set static IP, but I don't know if I've done it correctly and I have zero clue what I'm supposed to set my DNS settings to. Right now, my primary DNS is set to the default gateway, which is slightly different from the fixed IP and the primary DNS is the same as the default gateway. I don't even know what to do about the secondary DNS server.

I'm hoping that the answer lies somewhere in these settings, but I'm at a loss and I'm desperately looking for some help. Like I said, networking is very new to me so I apologize if I'm a little slow on the uptake. I'm happy to provide any additional info.

Thank you!
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dolbyman
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Re: Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by dolbyman »

both ethernet lines ?...already had a discussion about this today, in another thread..unless you have different subnets or trunking..do not connect more than one network cable to your nas

the plex warning is about plex not able to reach your server from the outside via port forwarding ..unless you need to access your file from wan without a vpn ignore it

I know some people here trust plex enough to expose it to the whole world..but I don't ..so any wan access via vpn only..but up to you

make sure you do not expose any other part of your nas to wan
brantonomous
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Re: Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by brantonomous »

dolbyman wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 9:48 am both ethernet lines ?...already had a discussion about this today, in another thread..unless you have different subnets or trunking..do not connect more than one network cable to your nas

the plex warning is about plex not able to reach your server from the outside via port forwarding ..unless you need to access your file from wan without a vpn ignore it

I know some people here trust plex enough to expose it to the whole world..but I don't ..so any wan access via vpn only..but up to you

make sure you do not expose any other part of your nas to wan
Sorry for my ignorance, but does having both ethernet lines connected to the NAS not do anything? I read that it increased transfer speeds and I've set up the port trunking thing through the QTS settings. Will unplugging one affect it any way?

Let me add a bit more info just for clarification:

I have a Plex Pass, and my goal in setting up my server was so I can use it at home through my Chromecast and while I'm away from my home while on my phone, laptop etc. and also for my sister who lives in another state to access it as well. I want to make sure I have all the correct settings in order to enable this and I'm unsure if what I've listed above will allow that or not. That's why I'm curious about the networking notification it's giving me in the Plex settings.

Let me know if that makes sense at all.
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dolbyman
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Re: Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by dolbyman »

if you setup trunking on nas and switch(needs to support it too) I guess you can do it ..it will only increase speeds of one or more clients simultaneous access..and saturating 1GbE with streaming alone would be a LOT of streams in 1080p and still several in 4k

I understand what your Plex goal is, but I am warning you about all the tears shed by people, that exposed their NAS to the open world and got their NAS hacked and malware infected

So make sure you ONLY forward the port to your NAS that enables Plex access and NOTHING else
brantonomous
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Re: Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by brantonomous »

Understood. That's all I wanted to do in the first place.

Here's what I've done so far:

-I disabled the port trunking and now I just have one line going to the NAS
-I was able to build the Plex server on the NAS, but I still can't access it from anything.
-I tried plugging directly into my modem instead of my switcher, but now Qfinder Pro can't find my NAS. It seems to only work through the switcher and I guess that's because I configured it through the switcher. I honestly have no clue.
-Now, Plex won't open through QTS when the ethernet is running from the switcher or the modem.

I really thank you for your time, but I'm a giant novice and I feel like there's a lot here that I don't know. I don't know anything about port forwarding or what I even need to do to make that work. And now that I can't even open Plex I'm just at a complete loss. I've had the NAS for 4 days now and I've only figured out today how to even transfer files to it. I watched a lot of tutorials before I got the thing and thought I knew how to get it running, but my case scenario has been completely different from anything I've read or seen.

Thanks for your advice and again, I really appreciate your time.
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dolbyman
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Re: Need Help with Plex Setup on QNAP TS-253D

Post by dolbyman »

normally a switch(no er) does nothing more than forwarding packets based on mac adresses ..there is more advanced switches..that can do routing etc...but lets just assume you have the former

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch

so leave your NAS connected to the switch ...unclear what the port on your router (you wouldn't connect the modem to a switch ..at least not in your case) is configured for

side question, what share did you transfer your media file to? the default "multimedia" folder is discouraged, due to issues with plex
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