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    Plex through surfshark wireguard pfsense vpn

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • jhmc93J
      jhmc93 @The Party of Hell No
      last edited by

      @The-Party-of-Hell-No see I want to use surfshark for other services,
      with the port forwarding do I need to port forward my isp router to the pfsense one? I only have one public IP currently, all i'm trying to do is make plex accessible for other users as well as myself, but I also want to use the VPN for my other services, I know I can't use it for plex now from research. But I'm trying to setup a route to my Plex media server to run without surfshark access, my other services id run on different LAN IP's.
      When I tried plex before through another user it said insecure error, so if I could run 1 IP not on surfshark and leave my other IP's for surfshark that would be good. But if I can't do that then thats ok.

      T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • T
        The Party of Hell No @jhmc93
        last edited by The Party of Hell No

        @jhmc93
        1 - ISP router? do you mean the ISP modem? I assume you have a cable modem which the pfsense box is attached. In this scenario the outward public IP should be the one assigned to your WAN by your ISP. that would be your target IP for others routing to your pfsense to be port forwarded to the PLEX server. I would think Plex has an app for putting on a device to access remote plex servers.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          You can just set a firewall rule on LAN for the Plex server as source that has the WAN_GW set specifically.

          jhmc93J T 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • jhmc93J
            jhmc93 @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 I Have tried this but I ain't getting internet connection from it.
            @The-Party-of-Hell-No , My ISP is a router and modem in one, so I have a Pfsense connected onto that for additional security, I ask this as I have port forwarded on the Pfsense side but not on my ISP side and still no luck.

            T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • T
              The Party of Hell No @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10
              So, there does not need to be a port forward so incoming requests can route through the WAN?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • T
                The Party of Hell No @jhmc93
                last edited by

                @jhmc93
                OK, so now we have more complexity. Yeah, I was going from the perspective of a modem without router. So yes somehow you are going to, I assume, create a port forward for your modem/router to the pfsense LAN IP of your Plex server. Again you want the Outward/public IP of the ISP modem/router to be the target. Don't know beyond that because I don't have any info on the ISP modem/router.

                jhmc93J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • jhmc93J
                  jhmc93 @The Party of Hell No
                  last edited by

                  @The-Party-of-Hell-No I'm from UK, anyway here's my rules:
                  Screenshot 2024-05-21 004008.png

                  it says I have traffic going to the plex server but if I ping on the Plex server it doesn't say anything

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Did you follow a guide for adding the surshark VPN? Did it have you remove the auto outbound NAT rule to prevent 'leaks'?

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      You don't need to obscure that 10.x.x.x private IP address. I assume that's the Plex server?

                      jhmc93J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • jhmc93J
                        jhmc93 @stephenw10
                        last edited by jhmc93

                        @stephenw10 that's the plex server, I followed this guide here,
                        https://www.ivpn.net/setup/router/pfsense-wireguard/
                        there's also another guide, trying to find it.

                        Found it. Forget what I said above it was definitely this guide I used:
                        PFsense how to surfshark and wireguard.zip

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Yup so that's exactly what it has you do:
                          https://www.ivpn.net/setup/router/pfsense-wireguard/#firewall

                          You'll need to add an outbound NAT rule for the Plex server IP to the WAN address on the WAN. Otherwise it not be translated and cannot connect out.

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Like:
                            Screenshot from 2024-05-21 00-56-20.png

                            Assuming 10.0.5.2 is the Plex IP. I would probably add an alias for it and then use that everywhere so you can change it in one pace if you need to.

                            jhmc93J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • jhmc93J
                              jhmc93 @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10 can you guide me on what I need to do then? Please as I’m new to pfsense. And all I seem to be doing is messing it up. The ip I’m using is a temporary machine so when I get the pfsense to bypass the vpn for Plex I can put it on my main thanks again

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                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Your WAN IP doesn't matter. The NAT rule only has to reference the source as the Plex server IP.

                                So add a rule like I showed above.

                                What outbound NAT rules do you have currently?

                                You could just switch Outbound NAT back to Auto or Hybrid and the rules will match the traffic from the Plex server.

                                As I said in those VPN guides they have you remove the auto outbound NAT rues to prevent traffic from internal subnet leaving via the WAN directly. Here you need that to happen.

                                jhmc93J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • jhmc93J
                                  jhmc93 @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10 dcd18421-cadf-4633-9074-039359c21b2e-image.png

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    OK so you need to add rule on WAN for the Plex server IP as I showed above.

                                    As an aside you should add a source for the Tailscale rule you have there. Having outbound rules with 'any' source can easily over-match traffic that should not be NAT'd like traffic from the firewall itself.

                                    Bob.DigB jhmc93J 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • Bob.DigB
                                      Bob.Dig LAYER 8 @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 said in Plex through surfshark wireguard pfsense vpn:

                                      Having outbound rules with 'any' source can easily over-match traffic that should not be NAT'd like traffic from the firewall itself.

                                      Like traffic from the WAN-address will be NATed to the WAN-address? I see, one can not invert that.

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Yup, exactly. We have seen that break VPN tunnels from the firewall itself because it also randomises the source port.

                                        Bob.DigB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • Bob.DigB
                                          Bob.Dig LAYER 8 @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10 Thanks. I guess I have to write a Feature request.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • jhmc93J
                                            jhmc93 @stephenw10
                                            last edited by jhmc93

                                            @stephenw10
                                            So I don’t need to do anything with my NAT outbound rules?
                                            I Tried creating a nat rule for Plex IP but it just defaults to 192.168.0.0

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