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Hi, all. So I want to set up a media server using my Raspberry Pi. It will be used by me and my partner, who is very much tech illiterate. She knows how to use Plex, but I'm tempted by the open nature of Jellyfin. How steep is the learning curve there? Should I just go with Plex and keep it simple? Or is Jellyfin manageable if I set it up for her?

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[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 85 points 1 week ago (1 children)

friends don't let friends use plex.

its paywalling yourself

[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Conversely, letting friends use your Jellyfin is complicated.

[–] josefo@leminal.space 6 points 1 week ago

reverse proxy that shit

[–] hietsu@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Tailscale and share the jellyfin node with friends. No need to have ports open or any DNS stuff. Clients are available for all systems.

[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can you explain to my mom how to install tailscale on her Roku and that she has to turn it on each time she wants to use Jellyfin but then back off again when she wants to watch something on a different app?

[–] lengau@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As far as I understand, Tailscale (being a Wireguard network) doesn't need you to flip it off and on - if you're connecting to the relevant endpoint it gets routed through that, otherwise it just goes the normal way.

Not gonna pretend that means the setup is trivial to nomies, but you could probably set it up for them and not have to worry about it.

[–] Dultas@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah but it doesn't auto connect on a lot of devices. So if you restart the device you have to reconnect. Tech illiterate people struggle with this concept.

[–] hietsu@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Have zero knowledge of Roku but for example with AppleTV boxes it is totally fire and forget, Tailscale is always on in the background and apps will find my media servers through it.

And I’ve noticed even tech illiterate people will learn to become literate when there is some motivation, like a huge movie archive :) Flipping a preference like VPN on if they want to use certain app is certainly within realm of possibility.

[–] hietsu@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Why exactly would they ever need to turn VPN off again? It’s not like all their traffic will go through it if it’s on, unless you specifically configure stuff that way (exit node, routes).

And one option to do the VPN stuff is on their router too, so it’s totally transparent to them. More stuff to configure though, unless running owrt or some other router software compatible with Tailscale.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

eh, maybe. for me it was opening a port and adding a dns record. took me all of 4 minutes

im kinda lucky in that my isp uses 'sticky' ips so while its not static, ive had the same ip for 5 years

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

But now you've exposed your network to the open internet without any sort of security.

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No you haven't. The security is the Jellyfin login prompt, then Jellyfin itself, then the Jellyfin container, and if you're really paranoid, that container won't be in your LAN.

[–] hietsu@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

If you don’t trust nginx or caddy or etc security, just install Tailscale to the jellyfin node and share the node with friends. All they need is Tailscale client then, and you dont have to open any ports.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Peak "bad things only happen to other people" energy here. Ignorance and flippancy will surely protect you!

yes my world will burn when they crack into my jellyfin instance and magically break out of its docker container and then what? goo nowhere on its vlan?

literally thousands of self-hosted jellyfin/emby instances and the support forums are just chocked full of people getting hacked via it! so many!

oh wait, no there arent

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sadly, my ISP charges an arm and a leg for anything other than dhcp

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dynamic DNS has been around forever. A program monitors your public IP address and updates the DNS record when it changes. You can even use a service like FreeDNS if you don't want to pay for a domain.

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

This was news to me, I will now be spending an afternoon trying to fix my self hosting setup in the near future