I’m posting here because I assume a lot of you use vpns and this sub seems to have the most users to ask.
I was thinking about getting a VPN but was wondering about port forwarding.
I’m a Linux head so I would be downloading distros via torrent. If the VPN does not support port forwarding is it still possible to use for Linux torrents? I’m not going to be “seeding” media and extreme amounts of data, but the device would always be on and torrenting. In this case does port forwarding matter?
I guess I don’t really understand dynamic and static port forwarding.
For my use case would mullvad or protonvon work even though they both use dynamic port forwarding? Or do I have to find one with static ports…?
This VPN would be used on a server with docker…
The other one I was looking at was airvpn, which is static, but I also read it might become more popular for people that use it for… Whatever… since mullvad stopped static ports.
Are there work around for dynamic ports? In case I ever want to host a website in the future?
Some vpns support usually a single port forward but it can be restricted to certain servers and potentially tricky to set up. Others can answer better on individual providers.
But just to correct a common misconception, port forwarding has nothing to do with seeding vs leeching. Port forwarding is so that you are connectable (others can connect to you). Two peers that are not connectable cannot connect to each other, but as long as one is connectable then a connection can be made and data can be uploaded/downloaded between the two.
So not being connectable will reduce the number of peers you can connect to, which will only really be an issue on torrents with few peers