How does emby 'store' users when they first register a remote app ?

[vaise 307]

So - this is part of my planned rollout of the new prod server.

My existing beta server is being used by a few friends and family remotely.  They don't use emby connect, so when they get a new device or a new emby app, they click manual setup, then they enter my server - https:\\emby.mydomain.com and the port 443, then they can enter their emby username and password.

I was wondering if that is stored on their remote device, or has something on the server side also ?

The new prod server will be the exact same servername and port, and the users have the same user and password. 

So, I am questioning what will the end user experience me when I change my backend server to the new prod server ?  Will then  be asked to register again?

Does the emby server display name have anything to do with this also - as I have picked a new name for the new prod server.

Does the 'devices' have anything to do with it ?  Do the devices store the remote connections in any way ?

[darkassassin07 423]

Last week, when I switched from a windows server to a debian server, using the same domain+port and with the same user names+passwords; users apps automatically connected to the new server as expected but they were asked to re-enter their usernames+passwords. (ie 'remember me' was forgotten, but everything else carried on as if nothing changed).

Edited March 3 by darkassassin07

[vaise 307]

Thats good to know - passwords i can manage - but the whole server/port thing is a big ask for the remote peeps.

[Happy2Play 8296]

Did you server maintain the same serverid or did you have it generate a new one?  But at the same time think you would need the authentication.db and devices folder.

So in the end I think a one-time reauthentication would apply.

[darkassassin07 423]

I technically did this three times:

 

windows > debian. 

That was a fresh install; new device id, newly created users but maintaining their passwords/names. Devices (and their associated auth tokens) were forgotten, but the devices themselves remembered the connection details so could easily reconnect and then re-auth.

At least one user has reported seeing the server listed twice in the change server page, but this is only cosmetic; both options connect them to the new server.

 

 

Then I moved that debian (docker) install back to what was the windows machine after wiping it and putting debian on it. That was a direct copy of the data and was entirely seamless. No re-auth, just a completely transparent switchover. (this maintained the same device id, but the previous server was taken offline)

 

Finally I spun up a beta server today:

Direct copy of the data like the above, but this time I had to delete the programdata/data/device.txt to create a new device id. Before doing so, clients would only remember one server: log into one, switch servers, login to the other, switch again and only the last one was listed. Deleted that file, restarted, and now both servers are listed in the change server menu after logging into both.

 

 

/edit: a note; I don't use emby connect. Not sure how that would interact.

Edited March 3 by darkassassin07

[vaise 307]

Just an update on this.

I rolled out the new emby prod server, which on my part was just :

• Resyncing watchlists
• Copyng over playback reporting data
• Change cloudflare tunnel to new emby ip address

On the user end, the ones with appleTV's, ios devices, and of course browsers etc just worked fine.

The chromecast with googleTV devices all had to have a new server added - i.e remove the old one and setup a new one.  Bit of a pain for the users.

I now have prod as daily driver and beta on the backup unraid server.  unraid backups have a 7 minute outage instead of 45mins now as the container is so much smaller.  Luke says it will grow as stuff is cached though.