Emby Connect, Remote Connectivity and Opening Ports

[wayloncovil 2]

Hi.

 

Emby is working fine on my local network. Both local Roku and Android devices connect to the server without issue.

 

I'm now trying to make my Emby server available externally.

 

I've read through the link below...

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/Connectivity

 

It says, in part...

You only need to read below if you're not using Emby Connect, or you're having trouble connecting.

 

 

So... I'm having trouble connecting.

 

My son has a Plex server running and said that he didn't have to open ports to allow others to connect externally.

 

From my reading, it appears that if I'm using Emby Connect, I shouldn't have to open ports to get external connectivity working.

 

I'd prefer to NOT open ports or do port forwarding if possible.

 

If Emby Connect should be working without opening/forwarding ports, what could I do to get this working?

 

Thanks!

Edited February 8, 2019 by wayloncovil

[Happy2Play 9780]

 

If Emby Connect should be working without opening/forwarding ports, what could I do to get this working?

 

 

Only if your setup supposes UPNP.  Enabled on your router and on the server.

 

Otherwise you have to manually port forward the ports for http and/or https.

[BAlGaInTl 288]

I'm pretty sure that you have to expose ports to run any media server and access it remotely.

 

It's likely that his Plex server was configured through UPnP which automatically opens the ports. Emby can do this too, it's an option in the settings.

 

That being said, I'm not a fan of UPnP and always do it manually myself.

[Luke 42077]

Plex also has a relay feature to route traffic through their server to get around this. This can allow it to work in all situations.

 

 

As emby is designed to be a private media we don't have that nor do we have any plans that. So this means ports will need to be opened.

[wayloncovil 2]

@@Luke, @@BAlGaInTl & @@Happy2Play, Thanks! That points me in the right direction!

Edited February 8, 2019 by wayloncovil

[wayloncovil 2]

Port Forwarding solved the issue. Thanks! Emby Connect found the Server without needing to do anything additional.

From what I'm seeing online, Port Triggering appears to be more secure than Port Forwarding.

Would Port Triggering be possible with Emby?

[Luke 42077]

We haven't done a whole lot of port triggering testing, but thanks for the feedback. Glad to hear that it's working now.

[BAlGaInTl 288]

Plex also has a relay feature to route traffic through their server to get around this. This can allow it to work in all situations.

 

 

As emby is designed to be a private media we don't have that nor do we have any plans that. So this means ports will need to be opened.

A shiver just went down my spine.

 

No thank you. It's one of the main reasons I'm using Emby over Plex.

[wayloncovil 2]

A shiver just went down my spine.

 

No thank you. It's one of the main reasons I'm using Emby over Plex.

I hadn't thought about the privacy implicates until I read your response.

Thank you.

 

Staying mostly on topic...

If I want to keep a port open to access Emby externally, is there tutorial or cheat sheet somewhere about making it the most secure? I see that we can do certificates, and use HTTPS ports. I think this is a topic that could be added to the wiki. I'm happy to write something up for the Wiki (I do stuff like this for a living) if I can cobble all the relevant items together.

[Luke 42077]

I would suggest SSL + assigning passwords to your users. You could also consider a reverse proxy.

[Volfan6415 19]

A shiver just went down my spine.

 

No thank you. It's one of the main reasons I'm using Emby over Plex.

Agreed the number of people who think of this as a “feature” of plex still astounds me.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited February 12, 2019 by Volfan6415

[Luke 42077]

Some people don't care how something is done as long as it works. Those are the ones that end up coming here and getting upset with us when they think we don't work.

[BAlGaInTl 288]

@@Luke

 

Yup.

 

Convenient security is normally not as secure.

 

Security by it's nature is inconvenient.

[Mvflex 0]

hello i have one questing  to aks  local port running  it working out side or not work 

[Luke 42077]

2 minutes ago, Mvflex said:

hello i have one questing  to aks  local port running  it working out side or not work 

Hi there, can you please describe your question in more detail? Thanks.

[Rei 0]

Hello! I'm posting here rather than starting a new thread, since I'm having the same problem as initially described, but none of the fixes I've tried based on this thread or the Connectivity documentation have worked yet.

I've been running a server for about a year on an Android box, and never had any issues with local or remote connection. However, the Android box wasn't able to handle some of the files in my library, so I've set up a new server on an old laptop. It's running fantastically on the local network, but I can't get it to connect remotely.

The laptop is running Windows 7, which is fully updated. UPnP is enabled on my router and on my server. I have Emby Connect, but tried setting up port forwarding on my router for both 8096 and 8920 anyway when nothing else was successful. I've set everything that contained the word "emby" to be permitted through Windows firewall. I've attempted a remote connection with my Android phone, and had one of my users attempt with her iPhone.

If anyone can please offer me some suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. I'm not much of a techie, but I can follow instructions. Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Have tried restarting after all of this? Sometimes this helps.

Double check your domain name or WAN IP address... and the DNS is updated.. make sure that your local IP's in port forwarding are still correct..

I use DHCP to bind an address to a machine when I setup but if your on static it does not always mean you will have the same IP after reboot or address allocation.

...and you can try this... Open Port Check Tool -- Verify Port Forwarding on Your Router (canyouseeme.org)

Edited April 26, 2021 by Guest

[Rei 0]

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I tried restarting a couple of times. The IP address hasn't changed after the restarts, although that was something I hadn't thought to check.

Canyouseeme can't see my connection.

[Guest]

Any other protection/security software running on the machine of ANY kind? ( besides Windows Firewall or Windows Defender? )

If you want to check for incoming requests.. and make sure your firewall is configured correctly try this ..

It Notifies you of requests incoming and outgoing.. useful.. Release 2.5 Beta · wokhansoft/WFN · GitHub

EDIT: Something I did not think about until just now.. You are going to have see about a rule to allow connections on port 80 in the firewall.. instead of configuring it for EMBY to access the internet in/out.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Guest

[Carlo 4560]

Hi, also something to check would be to directly log into your router and check the port forwarding to make sure this is pointing the the notebook IP address.
It's quite possible this was setup via UPnP previously and is still pointing to the old IP address.

[Rei 0]

20 hours ago, Hxemby001 said:

Any other protection/security software running on the machine of ANY kind? ( besides Windows Firewall or Windows Defender? )

If you want to check for incoming requests.. and make sure your firewall is configured correctly try this ..

It Notifies you of requests incoming and outgoing.. useful.. Release 2.5 Beta · wokhansoft/WFN · GitHub

EDIT: Something I did not think about until just now.. You are going to have see about a rule to allow connections on port 80 in the firewall.. instead of configuring it for EMBY to access the internet in/out.

Yes, it's running basic AVG Free Antivirus. There's no firewall, and I've set Emby as an exception.

I'll definitely look into WFN, thank you for the link.

I've set the rule for port 80 in the firewall. Still no luck.

 

13 hours ago, cayars said:

Hi, also something to check would be to directly log into your router and check the port forwarding to make sure this is pointing the the notebook IP address.
It's quite possible this was setup via UPnP previously and is still pointing to the old IP address.

Thank you for the suggestion! But I just set up port forwarding this weekend (since I never had to do that with the Android box), and double-checked the IP yesterday; it's all up-to-date.

 

[Guest]

What does the settings here say on your machine.. ( copy and drop into Windows Explorer. it's in the Control Panel too.)

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings

Some Windows 7 Machines are picking about this area. Turning on File and Printer Sharing... You would think it only applies for Home Network, but for some reason it does effect servers on some machines. ( Yes another restart is advised.. but may not be needed )

Be sure to cruise through AVG settings as well.. Security Software have been known to block certain aspects of this area without using a firewall per say.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Guest

[Guest]

EDITED

Edited April 27, 2021 by Guest

[Guest]

EDITED

Edited April 27, 2021 by Guest

[Rei 0]

Sorry for the delay in replying-- had a bit of an emergency this week. At any rate, for a minute, I thought your suggestion about the Advanced Sharing Settings might have solved it, because while File and printer sharing was on, the Media streaming option was set to off. However, that didn't do the trick, after all. (I've restarted after making changes.) Everything in the Advanced Sharing Settings is set to on right now.

I've been through AVG as well and set Emby as an allowed app or an exception anywhere that seems to fit, and even tried turning AVG off.