Hi everyone,
I'm hoping to get some advice on what might be an edge-case scenario. My goal is to use Channels DVR as a Live TV source for my cloud-hosted Plex server.
The core issue I'm facing is authentication. Because my Plex instance is in the cloud, Channels DVR correctly sees its requests as remote and requires authentication. However, Plex's M3U tuner feature doesn't seem to have a way to handle this login step.
Here is what I've attempted so far without success:
-
Direct M3U with Session Cookie: I tried grabbing the M3U playlist URL from Channels and appending it with
&Session=followed by a cookie I extracted from a valid login session. This did not work. - Nginx Reverse Proxy: I spent several hours trying to configure an Nginx reverse proxy. The goal was to create a simple, unauthenticated URL whitelisted to only my Plex server's static IP to use, which would then make an authenticated or "local" request to Channels on the backend. I wasn't able to get this working correctly.
Has anyone here successfully integrated Channels with a remote or cloud-hosted Plex server? Anyone still using nginx for Channels in 2025? I'd be grateful for any advice on a working reverse proxy setup or any other method to bridge this authentication gap.
PS: Installing Tailscale or any additional software on the Plex server is not possible, due to the server configuration. The Channels DVR is really the only portion I can control.
Thanks in advance!