Emby Client for WMC with VPN

[jaytea33 0]

Hello everyone,

 

I've been using Emby for quite a while now and love it!  First time posting here.

 

About 6 months back, my friend and I linked both of our Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through a PPTP VPN (not the best I know, temporary solution until I figure out a more secure VPN solution) so that we can stream each other's content 'locally' as it gets added without needing to transfer it over.  While it was a pain to configure everything, we eventually got it working.

 

With that being said, I'd like it so that both of our 2008 R2 servers stay linked to each other through the VPN so that everything is handled server-side.  If I connect to his server via the VPN from my client computer with WMC (rather than my 2008 R2 server, which is also where my Emby server resides) I can access his content without issue in the WMC Emby client and it opens in VLC just as planned, quite beautifully I might add.  However, if I connect my 2008 R2 server to the VPN (as opposed to my client computer with WMC), while I can access his content over the Emby web-interface without issue (over my Emby server's local IP, not WAN), the WMC Emby client cannot access his content.  The only way I can access his content from the WMC Emby client is to connect to the VPN with my client computer rather than my 2008 R2 server.  The path in the WMC Emby client is pointed to my Emby server's local IP, the same IP/port used when I access it via the web-interface.

 

I suspect that the web-interface is doing something that the WMC Emby client lacks.  To reiterate, the web-interface has no issue accessing his content (from my WMC Emby client machine) with my 2008 R2 server connected to the VPN, but the WMC Emby client doesn't seem to recognize the content over the VPN unless I connect to the VPN with my WMC client computer rather than my 2008 R2 server.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated and I am happy to provide further information or clarification if needed.  We are both using Windows VPN if that helps at all.  OS Client computer using WMC is Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

 

Thank you in advance.

Edited January 11, 2016 by jaytea33

[ebr 14935]

Can you please describe exactly what you mean by "can't access"?

 

The server isn't found, you can't log in, nothing shows in the main screen, items don't play...?

[jaytea33 0]

By "can't access" I mean that I can access all of the content on my server, but the content on his appears as offline. It actually freezes when trying to access it and I have to force kill eshell.exe.  I can see the content, but I suspect that it's cached based on the behavior.

Edited January 11, 2016 by jaytea33

[ebr 14935]

That would be because your server can't see his and whatever path is being reported is probably not accessible by either machine.

[jaytea33 0]

Do you have any idea why it would work in the web interface though and not the WMC client?  The'yre both using the same local IP/port, and to my knowledge the same protocol.

 

EDIT: Unless the web-interface uses http/https and the WMC client uses the \\ paths to locate it.  That would definitely explain it since my client computer can't access those paths if it's not the one connected to the VPN.

 

EDIT 2: Yeah, my "netstat -a -f" log confirms this.  I first tested being connected to the VPN on my WMC client machine and playing no content.  The netstat log shows the local VPN IP but no hostname, just shows *:*.  I then tested playing content via the WMC client (my client computer still connected to the VPN), ran netstat again, and I can see the local VPN IP and his server's hostname and it shows "***His server hostname here***:microsoft-ds    ESTABLISHED" pointing to the fact that the WMC client uses file paths (please do correct me if I'm wrong).  Then I disconnected from the VPN, connected to the VPN with my 2008 R2 server instead, jumped on my client computer and tested playing content through the web-interface.  I ran the netstat command again, and while the content plays fine, the local VPN IP and his sever hostname are absent since I'm not connected to the VPN on my client computer.

 

So I guess it comes down to the difference in the way the Emby server is being accessed.  I can't really see a viable solution to get around this, or if the setup I'm trying to do is even possible.  If the WMC client uses local paths, the only way I could see this working is somehow "sharing a share" from my 2008 R2 machine to my WMC client machine so that it has access to his content with no VPN connected on my client machine, but I don't believe Windows is capable of doing this.  I suppose the way the webUI works bypasses this restriction by sharing the content in a different way (or protocol).

 

Even if there is no proposed solution, confirmation that this is the case or any insight toward the matter to further my knowledge would be very much appreciated and I thank you for the time that you have already spent addressing this issue.

Edited January 11, 2016 by jaytea33

[ebr 14935]

Yes, the WMC app is designed to directly access your media for playback while the browser has to go through the server.

 

However, once the direct access fails (we test it before attempting playback) it should be falling back to attempting to stream through the server.  If you post a EMC log when this happens, I might be able to spot something.