remotely connected via openvpn - local but need it to be treated as remote

[chenks]

i'm testing accessing jellyfin remotely, and as i aleady have an OpenVPN server on my network this is what i'm testing.
i can connect to jellyfin when "off network" via the OpenVPN connection with no issues apart from one.

it doesn't detect that i am a remote user, obviously because i am connecting via my VPN it see's as being on the local network.

how can i set this so that it does see me as being "remote"? i need it to do that as i have a bitrate limit set for remote access.

should add that all my clients are apple devices using Infuse - iPhone, iPad, AppleTV (albeit the ATV are always local)

[wenzelja]

I believe that's the general nature of a VPN. It's always going to show you as connected locally, even if you are 1,000 miles away connected through Starlink on an iPad, or whatever you're trying to use to connect remotely. As long as that client device is connecting using a VPN connection back to your OpenVPN server, you are going to always appear as local.

If you want to connect as "remote," disable the VPN on your device. If you're using a phone, disconnect from your WIFI, and disable the VPN running on the phone, and then try to connect to your Jellyfin. If that works, then you are connected remotely. If you want the phone on a VPN for security reasons, you would need to use a separate one from your OpenVPN server to connect back to your Jellyfin "remotely".

[chenks]

If you want to connect as "remote," disable the VPN on your device.

if i disable the VPN then i won't have access to jellyin when i'm remote!

[wenzelja]

I guess I'm not following.

As I understand it, you have a server running Ubuntu with an OpenVPN server and Jellyfin in a Proxmox LXC and you want to access your Jellyfin server with an Apple device, but remotely. You need to turn off the VPN on your iPhone/Pad, otherwise the network will always see your iDevice as local. First, start from home by turning off WiFi and VPN's running on your iDevice, then access your Jellyfin server using the dynamic DNS address you have set up (duckDNS, CloudFlare, etc.).

Unless you haven't setup dynamic DNS and reverse proxy yet, and VPN is the only way your iDevices can access Jellyfin? In which case, that may be your missing link.

[chenks]

I have no ddns, and no Ubuntu server.
OpenVPN is running on my opnsense router.

OpenVPN is what I use to connect to my home network when away from home.

I don’t wish to open up my firewall to web ports and the such.

[TheDreadPirate]

By default Jellyfin will consider 192.168.0.0/16 as "local". Most OpenVPN servers on routers will put VPN clients on 192.168.254.0/24, which would fall into the "local" address space.

Dashboard > Networking > LAN Networks

You would define a smaller IP space that you want to consider "local". Something like 192.168.1.0/24. Or whatever your actual local clients use.

[chenks]

ok so i took the advice of the previous responder.

bought a domain.
set the nameservers on the domain to cloudflare
created a free cloudflare account, set up an A record to point to my WAN IP
installed nginx proxy manager, set up a proxy host for jellyfin

tested connected to jellyfin from a remote location using this URL (jellyfin.fubar.xyz)
jellyfin loaded as expected
played some content that had a bitrate that exceeded the remote bitrate limit.
checked the dashboard and it still played it as if i was a local user with no transcoding down to 8Mbps

am i missing some crucial part of the config?

[TheDreadPirate]

How did you configure Nginx? Did you set a "known proxy" in Jellyfin?

[chenks]

this is the nginx host setting



SSL cert is applied to the host.

i have put in anything in the known proxies setting in jellyfin.
i'm guessing i should put the nginx IP in there (192.168.50.17)

do i also need to apply any custom nginx config or custom locations?

[TheDreadPirate]

You would need to put the nginx IP in "known proxies" in Jellyfin.

I don't think anything else is required in Nginx, but check out the Nginx Proxy Manger section of our Nginx docs.

https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/networking/nginx/