A safe way to access our media from outside

M

meetdilip

Adept
Hi, I am not planning to have it 24x7 online. I will have someone at home to turn it off when not required. Mostly while travelling, is there any safe way to access our media files on my laptop or Android phone?

I was told to use PlexPass, but not looking for a paid option as the usage will be scarce. I was thinking of installing Jellyfin but not sure how safe it is to expose my network to the internet.

Wondering whether I can tie the access to my laptop and phone only so that others cannot get a chance to mess with things.

Not sure what is the best approach here. Ideas will be great. Thanks.
 
JellyFin and other personal servers require authentication before being able to access data. You will have to open up (forward) ports and "expose your network to the internet". That's how servers work. You can't have an offline server, that's an oxymoron. True for even an SSH/SFTP server. This will require you to have a public IP address (usually sold as a Static IP). Free VPN services may be too slow for media transfer.

Your other option is to get a cloud service/server and dump all your data on it. Again this will cost money depending on the features/disk space you require.

Remember even iCloud got hacked. A determined attacker will find an exploit. There's no guarantee for 100% security on the internet. But since you have someone at home to put the server online/offline as required, that can work as 2 factor authentication
 
I am using asus router and it does the job for me.
2tb hdd attached the router and router flashed with asus merlin firmware. Access the nas via asus ai cloud
 
I second the Tailscale suggestion - I have it installed on my media server and it's how I access it when I'm remote. Even my family members abroad can stream from it without too many issues. Speed isn't great, but it does the job.
 
Thanks all

n1r0 said:
JellyFin and other personal servers require authentication before being able to access data. You will have to open up (forward) ports and "expose your network to the internet". That's how servers work. You can't have an offline server, that's an oxymoron. True for even an SSH/SFTP server. This will require you to have a public IP address (usually sold as a Static IP). Free VPN services may be too slow for media transfer.

Your other option is to get a cloud service/server and dump all your data on it. Again this will cost money depending on the features/disk space you require.

Remember even iCloud got hacked. A determined attacker will find an exploit. There's no guarantee for 100% security on the internet. But since you have someone at home to put the server online/offline as required, that can work as 2 factor authentication
Click to expand...

I am not worried about the data, but getting the whole home network compromised. I understand that nothing is foolproof, but there is also the next best thing.

n1r0 said:
that can work as 2 factor authentication
Click to expand...

Jellyfin has it?
enthusiast29 said:
You can use tailscale to connect to your home network.
Click to expand...

Will check Tailscale +1

chetansha said:
2tb hdd attached the router and router flashed with asus merlin firmware. Access the nas via asus ai cloud
Click to expand...

Sadly, my router has no USB port.

I have an OMV setup. Wondering whether I should use that.

I have a separate router for it, has no internet though. Wondering whether there is any simple method to add internet to that network from my main network. As in, I can call home and ask someone to connect the internet to that network and access the media.

Not sure whether it is possible without me getting a new connection.
SirVer said:
I second the Tailscale suggestion - I have it installed on my media server and it's how I access it when I'm remote. Even my family members abroad can stream from it without too many issues. Speed isn't great, but it does the job.
Click to expand...

Looks great. Is it possible to create a VM and access it through Tailscale? Do I have to mess with the router for that?
 
meetdilip said:
As in, I can call home and ask someone to connect the internet to that network and access the media.

Not sure whether it is possible without me getting a new connection.
Click to expand...
To do it the usual way you'd need to know your public IP address every time you connect and have port forwarding configured properly on your local network. Also, depending on your ISP, even this may not work because some - if not all - of them use multiple layers of NAT, so your public IP may not even lead to your router. You'd need a static IP to get around this and those can cost a fair bit IIRC.

You could also try Ngrok or Cloudflare Tunnel (or other similar services) instead of Tailscale, especially if you don't need it on 24/7 and can have someone enable it for you. You might even get better network performance than with Tailscale, but that's highly dependent on your particular connection characteristics.
meetdilip said:
Looks great. Is it possible to create a VM and access it through Tailscale? Do I have to mess with the router for that?
Click to expand...
Yeah, that would be fine, though you might potentially face greater latency with a VM (just guessing about that, not sure). No router config is required - it's specifically designed for situations where that might not be possible or even helpful.
 
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