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?
Yes with caveats. Torrent swarms need at least 1 connectable (port forwarded) peer for the swarm to exchange data. If all the peers are firewalled (not port forwarded) then all the swarm peers can see each other but cannot exchange torrent data so there will be no uploading/downloading in that swarm.
Generally speaking you won’t notice much difference in large torrent swarms since those swarms usually have some/many connectable peers. But in smaller torrent swarms you may have trouble since your odds are worse that you’ll find connectable peers in those swarms.
PS - Yes you are still seeding/uploading while firewalled (not port forwarded) just not very effectively. While firewalled your best connections will be with connectable peers in the torrent swarms. Not much to think about with public torrents but it’ll kill your ratio at private trackers for sure.