Quick pin passwords for other IP subnets besides one Emby is on?

[virtualtinker 8]

So to help set the story here, my Emby server used to live in the same L2 IP space as the rest of my clients at home. The Quick pin setup made it easy for my wife and kids to use the Shield at home to login without needing a password, it was great.  Unfortunately, that is no longer the case since I introduced Ubiquiti equipment and started making the effort of moving all of my IoT devices into their own dedicated VLAN separate from my PCs, phones, and Emby server. Now, even though the IP subnets I am using are all the ones reserved for private IP use, since the Shield is no longer in the same subnet as the media server, the Shield is considered a remote device and is now forcing me to input a password.

 

I get that technically everything is working as designed, but I know there are many others that have already taken the step of isolating their IoT stuff to a different subnet, so I was curious if there was some trick or anything I could do to get Emby to recognize the other private IP subnets as local to get the quick pin passwords to work. I guess the other thing I could do is make a feature request if there isn't an easy way and see about getting something on the roadmap for either Emby to recognize all private IP spaces as local, or maybe beyond the subnet the Emby server is in, allow the user to add subnets that Emby should treat as local so those with dedicated VLANs can still get the benefit that the quick pins provide.

 

Thanks!

[Luke 42087]

there will be a lan networks setting in the next release of the server that might help with this.

[virtualtinker 8]

there will be a lan networks setting in the next release of the server that might help with this.

That may very well be the answer then if I can add my IoT network as a local LAN network according to Emby if the Easy Pin works again.  By any chance, is that already in the beta release or is it still a ways out? If it's in the beta, I'll go ahead and upgrade later today and test if this addresses my VLAN issue.

 

Thanks so much!

[Luke 42087]

It's in the beta, although it's not necessarily intended for this purpose, but it might work.

[virtualtinker 8]

It's in the beta, although it's not necessarily intended for this purpose, but it might work.

It didn't work. I added both the IP subnet of my media server and my IoT subnet where my streaming TV devices live now. My local LAN still works as normal, however, when logging into my Shield, I'm still being asked for a password. I guess all i can do at this point is ask at a later date if the LAN network functionality can be extended to work with the Easy Pin for those that put their TV boxes in a separate VLAN for security purposes. I can create a separate feature request if you think that would be best.

 

In any case, it was worth a shot so thanks for letting me know.  If any other uses of VLANs have any other ideas or workaround at this point, I'm all ears!

[virtualtinker 8]

@@Luke

 

Actually, are you able to tell me what ports Emby uses besides http/https related things? Is there any UDP ports or anything else for discovery whenever a client on the network is looking for the Emby server and attempting to connect? I just want to rule out that I've actually opened up all of the necessary ports between the two VLANs and nothing weird is going on where my Emby client is doing a loopback via my external hostname and connecting via the WAN.

[Luke 42087]

yes 7359 for udp discovery.

[virtualtinker 8]

Thanks Luke. I can confirm now for sure that the new LAN feature does not extend to Easy Pin Codes.  While I'm at it, I learned a few other things regarding discovery and how it acts when the Emby server and at least the Shield but maybe the other clients have to route over different networks. In the past when opening up Emby, discovery would be fairly quick to bring up the login screen, so it wasn't all that noticeable. Now, with my Shield in a separate VLAN, discovery definitely takes longer. What I ended up doing was set my main account to auto login instead of going to the login screen. This solved two problems for me with easy pin codes no longer working. Logging into Emby now is relatively painless for the wife and kids; auto logging in also bypasses discovery so connecting to Emby and going straight to my content is extremely quick. What I lost in doing this though was being able to easily manage and switch between the various accounts. I think though for the time being this is probably going to be the best solution for me.

 

I'd probably recommend at least at some point getting easy pin codes to work with the new LAN network feature. Also and I know this would be a on a client by client basis, maybe revisit how discovery works. Maybe, have discovery only run the first time when it's detecting an Emby server and don't run again until such a time that the discovered server that was last connected to isn't available, or maybe just stick an app option to disable discovery. Again, it isn't a huge difference in time when everything is in the same subnet, but there was an appreciable difference in time once the clients are split out into their own network.

 

In any case, thanks again for your assistance with all this!

[Luke 42087]

Well, no, it does extend to easy pin codes, it's just not exactly what it was designed for.