Skip to main content

About a year ago, I came to the conclusion that I do not want SMB1 in my house anymore for obvious reasons. So I moved away from the music library towards Plex which I experience reasonable but cumbersome at the same time. Still it works.

 But….Plex needs port forwarding 32400 and since a couple of days I`m using threat management on my router gateway and guess what: there are multiple ‘sources’ knocking on that particular port every day. This is for me a ‘no go’ with Plex remote access unless someone sees alternatives using Plex without keeping that port opened (question 1 :wink: ).

So assuming I need to say goodbye to Plex (I only keep it alive for Sonos which is rather heavy): what are my alternatives in the current landscape of Sonos services to connect Sonos to the music on my Synology NAS (question 2).

 

 

You could turn off the TCP port forwarding on 32400 …and turn on UPnP on your router instead and then let Plex select its own random port which it will switch to reduce the risk, but it’s really only a slight risk if the sever is switched on - the hacker would need your plex account credentials.

I would just stick with plex and wait for the SMB update from Sonos, which has in some respects been announced as coming in the not too distant future in this thread/post:

https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/smb1-security-issue-lack-of-response-from-sonos-6860761?postid=16551779#post16551779

I quite like plex but for some reason I find it’s connection via iOS controller app a bit intermittent, but works better via the desktop controller. I run an SMB v1 share on my network anyway as a number of iOS SMB media streaming apps still only work with SMB v1.

You could turn off the TCP port forwarding on 32400 …and turn on UPnP on your router instead and then let Plex select its own random port which it will switch to reduce the risk, but it’s really only a slight risk if the sever is switched on - the hacker would need your plex account credentials.

I would just stick with plex and wait for the SMB update from Sonos, which has in some respects been announced as coming in the not too distant future in this thread/post:

https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/smb1-security-issue-lack-of-response-from-sonos-6860761?postid=16551779#post16551779

I quite like plex but for some reason I find it’s connection via iOS controller app a bit intermittent, but works better via the desktop controller. I run an SMB v1 share on my network anyway as a number of iOS SMB media streaming apps still only work with SMB v1.

Thanks; this is the first time I ever read on the intention to move to SMB2 but the lacking timeline is not promising. I`m no fan of UPnP, feels a bit like opening doors but I anyway am thinking of retiring Plex, it is a heavy consuming server that I only use for Sonos at the moment. It is only that I have no clue what is out there as alternatives. Just thinking out loud:

  • putting music in the cloud and acces from there through a service
  • play local music from within Spotify service
  • synology has cloud access, if that would be a Sonos service, I could access from there
  • etc (?)

It depends on the hardware you have available to you - for example you could setup a share on a PC and use the desktop controller App to access that using the http protocol.

You could playback from an Android device library, or if you have a compatible Sonos device you could use Airplay, or Bluetooth, or a Sonos API ‘connect’ service like Spotify or Amazon Music.

If you have a Sonos HT device and Google chromecast, you could playback through its connection via the HT room.

There are a good many alternatives, but it depends what ‘other’ hardware you currently have available to use.

Indeed, I did use Airplay, I have compatible devices but it is all not really satisfying. I think the solution I am looking for is the kind of service that MyCloudHome offers for WD but then connecting to my Synology. Maybe Spotify or Amazon the way you mention but not sure how that works and what others are out there. I do have Spotify btw.

Just use a PC or a Mac. No SMB required.

Just use a PC or a Mac. No SMB required.

Mm, my collection is on a NAS and I`m really into servers rather than using clients for this purpose.

Add a NAS to SMB v1 gateway, it allows you to serve the Music Library in SMBv1 for Sonos access but removes the risk of allowing v1 on your “real” NAS. A Sonos only NAS is an option too.

Both options are here, examples for a Raspberry Pi but will work on any SMBv1 compliant system.

https://stan-miller.livejournal.com/

Once Sonos supports SMBv2 or higher you can either reconfigure the Pi or connect directly to your NAS.

 

We got some RPI`s here but for other purposes (PiHole DNS for me & Playaround python programming for my son) but I`m more searching for a Sonos service that is capable of doing the job like Plex is; does that not exist ?

I haven’t really looked. I did give Plex and a couple others a short try many years ago but I’m happy with the limited Music Library functions Sonos offers for my local collection.

Terms & ConditionsCookie settings