After 14 years with Plex, I finally moved my video library to Jellyfin. Why rising costs, feature restrictions and digital ownership pushed me towards FOSS.
Not something that unfortunately works as easily for me to connect my ailing mom’s TV to, and do NOT want to manage the reverse proxy + cert + etc setup for a number of reasons
You do then still have to expose JF to the open internet. That’s not without risk. Neither is Plex but they do make it a point to secure all their endpoints before login.
The point is that you now have another app to manage or learn about just for remote viewing, and the general public can’t and won’t manage something like that. People like us, no problem, its easy, but my dad would never be able to, for example. He can install plex and just log in to an app anywhere to use it though.
Also, dont forget that many households have non-static IP addresses, so now you need more management for that issue (again, easy for us).
But Jellyfin! It solves all your problems, you don’t have to pay for it (because fuck paying for software of any type even if it provides you some value), and did I mention Jellyfin‽
Why aren’t you using it yet? Are you a plex sympathizer? Get outta here with that!
What?
I don’t care if you have a good use case for using plex / Emby / Kodi / VLC / WMC / etc; you will assimilate and use Jellyifn!
Yeah it can be more limiting. Personally I got lucky and my mom’s TV runs Android so I could just install a wireguard client.
I will probably at some point bridge her network with mine since I want to install a TrueNAS box at her house for remote backup. So the VPN client will be moot at that point.
Which part? For the TV there was literally a wireguard app. I just had to install it on the TV and configure the connection to my wireguard server.
For the bridging I gave her my old router which I haven’t tested but I believe should support VPN bridging. I already have her on a subnet that won’t conflict with my network for that reason.
If you have a machine at her place that is on most of the time you can have tailscale on that device and then make it ssh into itself with ssh portforwarding on!
Edit: You can also selfhost headscale and do the same as the comment below said
That doesn’t slove the problem if your Smart TV doesn’t support tailscale or something like Wireguard. Using another machine connected to a VPN like for example Tailscale/Headscale and then using ssh portforwarding allows you to access the service(jellyfin) on the device without support.
It would be like this:
Jellyfin <-- Tailscale/Headscale <— Machine forwarding the jellyfins port <-- Smart TV
Most people are not gonna go that route unfortunately. I want to love JF, but the remote access is a big sticking point, especially for non tech relatives.
It bugs me when people just say tailscale like that solves it all. It’s very useful and solves a lot of problems, but not all. Unfortunately.
I completely agree, Tailscale will not just solve your issues. If you want to have is as simple as possible for your users you are going to need to expose it publicly for your users. And the reason I posted the comment above is to share a solution that has worked for me to get my users "Smart"TVs to work. Honestly if someone where to make a service that provides a “plex networking” solution for jellyfin I think allot of people would consider using it and leave plex for good!
I set up a free dns from duckdns.org and pointed it to my jellyfin server. All my parents had to do was to use that https://randomserver.duckdns.org/ as the server url in the jellyfin app.
It’s been running on caddy + duckdns for 5 years or more now. I use a non standard jellyfin port for the port forwarding, so that probably helps. Also, there’s probably an aspect of security by obscurity.
Yeah then this might not be a great idea for you, unless you have the possibility to fix a machine if you visit. But I want to make it clear this is not a fix all thing just trying to help :D
Not something that unfortunately works as easily for me to connect my ailing mom’s TV to, and do NOT want to manage the reverse proxy + cert + etc setup for a number of reasons
There are a ton of reverse proxy options that manage the cert for you
You do then still have to expose JF to the open internet. That’s not without risk. Neither is Plex but they do make it a point to secure all their endpoints before login.
The point is that you now have another app to manage or learn about just for remote viewing, and the general public can’t and won’t manage something like that. People like us, no problem, its easy, but my dad would never be able to, for example. He can install plex and just log in to an app anywhere to use it though.
Also, dont forget that many households have non-static IP addresses, so now you need more management for that issue (again, easy for us).
In this scenario, your dad just installs Jellyfin and logs in.
You’ve set up the reverse proxy to your server, its transparent to him.
You can update DNS records automatically so its also a fire and forget kind of thing.
But I guess, give your data to the corpos because its easier.
No, im talking about him running his own server. Not connecting to mine.
There’s lots of reasons I don’t want to set this up
But Jellyfin! It solves all your problems, you don’t have to pay for it (because fuck paying for software of any type even if it provides you some value), and did I mention Jellyfin‽
Why aren’t you using it yet? Are you a plex sympathizer? Get outta here with that!
What?
I don’t care if you have a good use case for using plex / Emby / Kodi / VLC / WMC / etc; you will assimilate and use Jellyifn!
JELLYFIN!!!11!1!1!1!1!. /s
I just wish they’d fucking take their security seriously and we could wipe plex out.
Me too. But they also need a lot more features.
Like Tautulli and Plexamp.
Jellystat isn’t bad for a Taut alternative
This is like the 3rd thread I’ve seen you have a complete meltdown when someone mentions Jellyfin.
Because it’s the app to use! Forget everything else!!! JELLYFIN!!!1!1!1!1!
(That’s what you all sound like)
Jellyfin once located my lost puppy. Which Plex had stolen.
Damn, Jellyfin can swim through land, too.
Surprisingly, that is what the fin is for
I believe it! Emby probably kicked the dog whole plex stole it.
Yeah it can be more limiting. Personally I got lucky and my mom’s TV runs Android so I could just install a wireguard client.
I will probably at some point bridge her network with mine since I want to install a TrueNAS box at her house for remote backup. So the VPN client will be moot at that point.
just syncthing it :)
How do you go about doing that?
Which part? For the TV there was literally a wireguard app. I just had to install it on the TV and configure the connection to my wireguard server.
For the bridging I gave her my old router which I haven’t tested but I believe should support VPN bridging. I already have her on a subnet that won’t conflict with my network for that reason.
FYI, scrcpy can be an excellent tool for remote support, but you’d better trust the network the interface is on
If you have a machine at her place that is on most of the time you can have tailscale on that device and then make it ssh into itself with ssh portforwarding on!
Edit: You can also selfhost headscale and do the same as the comment below said
What in the goddamn fuck, sir
Step 1) Install tailscale (headscale also exists if you wanna fully self-host it)
Step 2) Done, solved
That doesn’t slove the problem if your Smart TV doesn’t support tailscale or something like Wireguard. Using another machine connected to a VPN like for example Tailscale/Headscale and then using ssh portforwarding allows you to access the service(jellyfin) on the device without support.
It would be like this:
Jellyfin <-- Tailscale/Headscale <— Machine forwarding the jellyfins port <-- Smart TV
This can be done with a command like this:
ssh -L 0.0.0.0:8096:jellyfin_tailnet_ip:8096 -f -N user@machine
You know, there’s probably a market for a hardware solution to do that. Wrap it up in a nice user interface, Family VPN bridge, expose JF servers.
Most people are not gonna go that route unfortunately. I want to love JF, but the remote access is a big sticking point, especially for non tech relatives.
It bugs me when people just say tailscale like that solves it all. It’s very useful and solves a lot of problems, but not all. Unfortunately.
I completely agree, Tailscale will not just solve your issues. If you want to have is as simple as possible for your users you are going to need to expose it publicly for your users. And the reason I posted the comment above is to share a solution that has worked for me to get my users "Smart"TVs to work. Honestly if someone where to make a service that provides a “plex networking” solution for jellyfin I think allot of people would consider using it and leave plex for good!
Doesn’t emby have some kind of “connect” feature? I wish jf would do something like that
My mom lives 900 miles away and she can barely turn a computer on
I set up a free dns from duckdns.org and pointed it to my jellyfin server. All my parents had to do was to use that https://randomserver.duckdns.org/ as the server url in the jellyfin app.
Doesn’t that mean your jellyfin server is directly exposed to the Internet? The very thing everyone constantly warns against?
I’m still on Plex, one of my biggest hangups with JF is that the remote access is kludgy
It’s been running on caddy + duckdns for 5 years or more now. I use a non standard jellyfin port for the port forwarding, so that probably helps. Also, there’s probably an aspect of security by obscurity.
Yeah then this might not be a great idea for you, unless you have the possibility to fix a machine if you visit. But I want to make it clear this is not a fix all thing just trying to help :D
<3