Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How to hide a network interface from an application

[Sid Spry]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, at 5:03 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2020-08-13, Sid Spry <sid@××××.us> wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, at 4:33 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> >> How does one hide a network interface from a badly-written application?
> >>
> >> I'm using Plex Media Server as a DVR, it it seems to have been written
> >> by Windows programmers who assume that your computer exists for no
> >> purpose other than running their program and their program alone.  It
> >> spews multicast and broadcast packets on all network interfaces
> >> regardless of which interface you configure it to use.
> >>
> >> Is creating a network namespace that contains only the interfaces Plex
> >> is allowed to use the best way to try to fix this problem?  [Assuming
> >> the developers won't do anything about it.]
> >
> > Yes, though you typically have to go out of your way to select a single
> > interface.
>
> I'm not sure what "go out of your way" means in this context.  I
> assume I'd create a network namespace for Plex, and then use either
> macvlan or ipvlan to share one of the physical interaces between the
> root namespace and the Plex namespace.  I'd like the 'lo' interfaces
> to be shared as well, but I'm not sure that's possible.
>

Sorry, I meant go out of your way to select more than one interface. I'm
genuinely confused anyone would ever do that let alone Plex.

Yes, you're right (as far as I know). You might wish to see if Plex has a
premade container built. I typically don't like them, but it will save you
a fair bit of work if it exists.