10gigabit LAN switches, unifi APs, pfSense firewall including OpenVPN
Connected Audio Devices
16 Chromecast devices
2 Android 13 mobile devices (phone, tablet)
Number of Tracks in Library
60000 tracks
Description of Issue
I have pfSense configured with OpenVPN.
I use a Galaxy S22 Ultra . I connect in cellular mode, and enable my OpenVPN.
I then run the Roon app. It finds the Roon Core just fine, meaning it can communicate with it at the IP level. The problem is in the zones listed. The “S22 Ultra” zone for the phone’s output does not show up. I see all my Chromecast device zones only - the ones on the remote LAN. That is not at all useful when on the go.
Is there any kind of configuration change I can make to pfSense to allow the Android Roon app to find the phone’s audio output zone, and not just the LAN devices ?
Right now I’m using a 192.168.100.0/24 for my LAN devices, and 192.168.101.0/24 for the VPN devices, if that matters.
Is there any official statement from Roon about VPN support somewhere ? I have 5 days left evaluating Roon and this is a big deal.
Competing solutions (such as Plex) work fine on VPN but are lacking in other ways.
I would like to use the same music server when I’m at home using my Chromecast as when I’m on the go (traveling, driving, etc).
I have setup Roon ARC through pfSense, but I find the app unsuitable. The problem is that I can’t transfer the playback from Roon to Roon ARC. For example, I have setup a playlist that’s about 70 hours long . I can play through it home fine and switch between the 16 zones. But once I leave the house, I can’t switch the output from Roon to Roon ARC. I have to start over and find the right track among all 1700 and play “from here”. This is very hard to do and a big usability problem.
Same subnet ? That seems like a rather arbitrary limitation. Since the client can already find and connect to the Roon core (it shows the whole music library, and all the LAN audio zones), there is no reason it could not “register” its zone with the Roon core and allow a callback connection, rather than require discovery relying on mDNS or other broadcast mechanism that doesn’t normally work across interfaces.
@Julien_Pierre, as noted, Roon does not support VPN connectivity and requires all devices playing Roon to be on the same subnet. I have moved this thread to the Tinkering category where other users have had some success with VPNs and may have ideas on how to use a VPN for Roon.
No Roon relies on a number of different ways for discovery and RR endpoints use ssdp using multicast UDP, this will not traverse a subnet nor vpn without fa UDP proxy of some sort, only airplay and chromecast clients use mDNS as does the remote software and this can traverse if network is capable of doing so.
This is by design. You will find most auto discovery systems including any UPnP/DNLA systems, Sonos and Heos are not developed to work across any kind of subnet but over a flat network topography. You can get them to work but they are not fully supported and you on your own to work out how.
You asked for official statement, in that reply it says
“Roon doesn’t support cases where a VPN is involved because it’s not built to function with them.”