Static IP that points directly to Emby Connect

[JustEric78 24]

Hello, I apologize if this is the wrong section, none of them really fit with my question so if this needs to be moved than by all means do so. I have a URL that I own that some friends have used for many years. I want to transition everyone to start instead using Emby connect to get to the server. I was hoping you all could provide me with a static IP that I could add to my DNS that will directly send users to that site? If there is another way of doing this I would love to hear it if the above is not possible. I just cannot use https://emby.media/connect.html as DNS will not take a subpage. Thanks for any assistance or advice on this. 

[JustEric78 24]

Disregard, I completely had forgotten you can add a redirect instead of a cname record, thanks again for all the work you all do. 

edit: I could have just made a cname going to http://app.emby.media/ oh well, all good now anyway, but in case anyone else wants to do something similar. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by JustEric78

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, Careful with that as it may/may not work with dedicated clients as they may not allow that nor work the same way.

If I understand you correctly you don't want to use the domain any more yet you are setting up a CNAME record pointing to the EC website address instead of your server.
What do you gain by doing this?  This to me just makes something that was clean into a dirty mess.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?  What's the end goal?

[JustEric78 24]

Yes, I found that redirecting after it took effect effect did not work as I intended. I deleted the redirect and just added in the cname record, that should be a clean transition so I will have to see once that one overrides the previous change. Basically I setup a subdomain on my domain many years ago to make it easier on my friends to remember how to get directly to my server IP/port using IIS on my server to redirect once they hit my network. I may have even set this up before EC was a thing, cannot recall now. Regardless, I have since moved and no longer have a static IP with my ISP and want to stop messing with broken links when/if my IP address changes. So to make it easier on everyone that has used my domain forever, I will just forward them to EC so I do not have to worry about it any longer. 

Hi, my name is Eric, I am an IT professional that likes to implement overly complicated solutions

@cayars

Edited November 23, 2021 by JustEric78

[Carlo 4561]

Me likes to overcomplicate things as well.

Have you thought about getting a CloudFlare account?
With a free Cloudflare account you could solve your problem 2 says.

First way is using their API to update your domain IP address. A small client watches for WAN IP changes and if that happens, adjusts the IP directly on Cloudflare.
In that fashion it kinds of works like a dynamic domain.  Cloudflare of course offers lots of protection as well as serving up cached images to it speeds up remote user transfers, save you bandwidth on the images and just makes things seem more speedy for your remote friends.

So that wasn't too complicated after all, so I can't end it like that.
Cloudflare also offers what they call Argo Tunnel.  It's a tunnel server that is initiated from your server running Emby.

Think WireGuard style tunnel and you're close to being on the money. You can set this up so it's on 100% of the time and auto starts if it fails.
Setup as a service/deamon it's always running.  If your WAN IP changes even while using the tunnel it may have a couple second hickup but it keeps right on working.

Best of all you need zero open ports on your router so not only does it help speed up your server but it solves your IP problem as well as give you better security.
Anyone trying to ping or find out the IP of your server will only see Cloudflare IPs.
You would probably enjoy the geek factor in that as well as have fun setting it up.

I've been running 3 tunnels for about 6 months with zero issues and my server is faster with the tunnel then without it (better routing).

[JustEric78 24]

5 minutes ago, cayars said:

Me likes to overcomplicate things as well.

Have you thought about getting a CloudFlare account?
With a free Cloudflare account you could solve your problem 2 says.

First way is using their API to update your domain IP address. A small client watches for WAN IP changes and if that happens, adjusts the IP directly on Cloudflare.
In that fashion it kinds of works like a dynamic domain.  Cloudflare of course offers lots of protection as well as serving up cached images to it speeds up remote user transfers, save you bandwidth on the images and just makes things seem more speedy for your remote friends.

So that wasn't too complicated after all, so I can't end it like that.
Cloudflare also offers what they call Argo Tunnel.  It's a tunnel server that is initiated from your server running Emby.

Think WireGuard style tunnel and you're close to being on the money. You can set this up so it's on 100% of the time and auto starts if it fails.
Setup as a service/deamon it's always running.  If your WAN IP changes even while using the tunnel it may have a couple second hickup but it keeps right on working.

Best of all you need zero open ports on your router so not only does it help speed up your server but it solves your IP problem as well as give you better security.
Anyone trying to ping or find out the IP of your server will only see Cloudflare IPs.
You would probably enjoy the geek factor in that as well as have fun setting it up.

I've been running 3 tunnels for about 6 months with zero issues and my server is faster with the tunnel then without it (better routing).

Wow man, solution for my problem or not that is pretty damn amazing. I will have to check those out for sure, if nothing else but to see the functionality of them. With that said, with a cname, it is pretty transparent unlike a redirect. A redirect sometimes masks the URL you are going and causing the problems you mentioned previously. A cname just simply says, instead of coming here, go there and then disappears. The EC URL still shows and nothing is out of the normal to interfere with the player, that I am aware of at least. For some reason this DNS redirect is last a long time so I still cannot test, I will though report back to correct myself if I am mistaken on that as to not lead others astray. I have used this in my career in the past several times, like I said I have had trouble with redirects, but not with cnames. 

[Carlo 4561]

I understand how it works.  But have you tried using this with Roku's, Samsung or LG TV or other hardware based clients?

Remember only browsers and Theater type apps use URLs while the hardware devices talk to a port at a specific address.

When a person uses a device and goes to your domain pointing at your server it can get to ports 8096 or 8920 because you have opened the router and forwarded those ports to your server.  http(s)://app.emby.media is only going to listen on 80 and 443 because it's a web app.

Emby Connect is augmented for browsers using app.emby.media but devices have this logic built in.  Some may actually be able to handle this but other likely won't as app.emby.media was never intended for use like this.

A ddns client running on your Emby machines is all you need to fix the IP changing problem because it will update your domain record IP address.

[JustEric78 24]

44 minutes ago, cayars said:

I understand how it works.  But have you tried using this with Roku's, Samsung or LG TV or other hardware based clients?

Remember only browsers and Theater type apps use URLs while the hardware devices talk to a port at a specific address.

When a person uses a device and goes to your domain pointing at your server it can get to ports 8096 or 8920 because you have opened the router and forwarded those ports to your server.  http(s)://app.emby.media is only going to listen on 80 and 443 because it's a web app.

Emby Connect is augmented for browsers using app.emby.media but devices have this logic built in.  Some may actually be able to handle this but other likely won't as app.emby.media was never intended for use like this.

A ddns client running on your Emby machines is all you need to fix the IP changing problem because it will update your domain record IP address.

So yeah, you said it, they communicate on port 80 and 443, not sure what you are getting at brotha. A simple redirect without masking isn't going to effect that, masking will mess that up, I guess that is what you've seen, they're using redirect is why, cname is benign. No issues from me or most of my users. I appreciate the replies.

[Carlo 4561]

You're thinking with a web browser mentality. Think like a dumb piece of hardware embedded in a device running apps. You connect to an IP/port combination and the port doesn't open.  There is no logic to follow redirects or anything as this isn't the web.

What I'm saying is this approach is the wrong way because it won't work all the time with different clients on different hardware.

It will/should work with a browser.
It will work for anyone using Emby on a device logging in via Emby Connect because your domain name isn't used at all as the server reports the IP and port to use.
It will not work for anyone entering the domain and port on a device because they will be redirected to an Emby IP which isn't going to be running your Emby Server.

The proper solution is to make sure the domain entry points to your Server's WAN IP. This is simple to do using the many DDNS clients available. Most home routers have this built in so all you have to do is configure it. This is perfect because your router most certainly knows when the IP changes and updates your DNS records right away.
Or strictly use Emby Connect and forget about your domain name.

You can't use a combination of both in all situations as it will not work.

[JustEric78 24]

5 minutes ago, cayars said:

You're thinking with a web browser mentality. Think like a dumb piece of hardware embedded in a device running apps. You connect to an IP/port combination and the port doesn't open.  There is no logic to follow redirects or anything as this isn't the web.

What I'm saying is this approach is the wrong way because it won't work all the time with different clients on different hardware.

It will/should work with a browser.
It will work for anyone using Emby on a device logging in via Emby Connect because your domain name isn't used at all as the server reports the IP and port to use.
It will not work for anyone entering the domain and port on a device because they will be redirected to an Emby IP which isn't going to be running your Emby Server.

The proper solution is to make sure the domain entry points to your Server's WAN IP. This is simple to do using the many DDNS clients available. Most home routers have this built in so all you have to do is configure it. This is perfect because your router most certainly knows when the IP changes and updates your DNS records right away.
Or strictly use Emby Connect and forget about your domain name.

You can't use a combination of both in all situations as it will not work.

Okay, thank you. I know my router has an option to add that, not sure if it'll go out and update DNS though. I'll look into it more though, thank you for all the advice.