this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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[–] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 59 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Use a VPN, it's not ideal but it's secure.

[–] faercol@lemmy.blahaj.zone 44 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Somehow difficult to install on a TV though.

[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That’s why you do it at your router or gateway and then set a route for the Jellyfin server through the VPN adapter. That way any device on your network will flow through the tunnel to the Jellyfin server including TVs

[–] faercol@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 4 days ago

Which again implies that you have a router that allows you to do so. It's not always the case. For tech enthusiast people that's the case. But not for everyone.

I tried to do the same thing at first, but it was a pain, there were tons of issues.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Oh yes, the routers and gateways that most people have that are isp provided that may not actually have open VPN or wireguard support.

Those ones?

Also putting a VPN in someone else's house so that all their Network traffic goes through your gateway is pretty damn extreme.

[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip -2 points 3 days ago

What? No, you can do a tiny reverse proxy/vpn on a stick with something like a RPi. Configure it and give it to them. Then they point their Jellyfin client on their device to the IP of the RPi instance on their network and that creates the tunnel back to your VPN endpoint and server.

And for VPNs at a router level you can inject routes and leave th default route going out through your ISP, you don’t need to, nor want to, have all traffic going through it.

[–] tiz@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Don’t reverse proxies like pangolin just do the job? Does it have to be VPN in this particular concept? VPN isn’t like immune to vulnerabilities.

[–] radar@programming.dev 31 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Reverse proxy doesn't really get you much security. If there is an application level issue a reverse proxy will not help

[–] whimsy@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Hmmm, I'm a bit rusty on this but can't one put an auth gate in front of the application, handled by the reverse proxy?

[–] radar@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You can, that would actually give you security. Not sure how many people do that. I assumed a straight reverse proxy without any auth

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

I think that's one of the major reasons to use pangolin over something like nginx - built in auth and support for oidc.

Of course, the native jellyfin apps don't like the auth layer so idk if it helps if you're trying to install it on your dad's tv

[–] tiz@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

I see thanks. I’ll think about it more.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

well, at least you are not depending on the application to do TLS properly, and you may be able to set up some access restrictions that your clients may support

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Reverse proxy will let anyone connect to it. VPN, you can create keys/logins for your intended users only. Having said that, from what I could see, nothing in the security fixes were to do with authentication. I think (just from a cursory look), they could only be exploited, if at all from an authenticated user session.

But personally, something like jellyfin where the number of people I want to be able to access it is very limited, stays behind a VPN. Better to limit your potential attack surface as much as you can.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Reverse proxies like the one specifically mentioned, pangolin, have auth and user access rules.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Pangolin is based off of Traefik if I’m not mistaken, should be able to use Traefiks IPAllowlist middleware to blacklist all IP addresses and only whitelisting the known few, that way you can expose your application to the internet knowing you have that restriction in place for those who connect to your service.

[–] VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If the people you want to have access have static, exclusive ip addresses. Which is pretty unusual, these days.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Oh yeah I’m aware, if people don’t want to use a VPN then I suggest this but give them the advisory warning.

Actually, recently I’ve been using a fork of IPAllowList which accepts DDNS addresses, but that usually is for more technical folk who would probably rather use a VPN then purchase a domain and associate it with their network.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

Yahnlets see a roku use a VPN.