ANSWERED Help with port forwarding explanation and qbittorrent

[Bobba_fat 0]

Hi,

Before I get the standard: "did you read the FAQ and such."
YES! YES I did, and I didn't obviously get all of it.
So if you feel like you don't want to explain it all over again or help me out, I thank you in advance and ask that you kindly carry along.

For you still reading

I read this:
https://airvpn.org/faq/port_forwarding/
https://airvpn.org/faq/p2p/

And tried portforwarding here.
https://airvpn.org/ports/

Now here is my thinking and my understanding and some questions along the way:

(I'm completely new to this whole thing, so please bear with me)

1. I open the Eddie UI:
Activate the network lock.
Question 1: (To stop leaking  my IP adress if the connection somehow is exposed (?), did i get it right? It's like a safe mechanism)
And Connect to my desired server.

2. I went to my qbittorrent and copied a port and went over to clientarea-->forwarded port and added it there. I had to try several ones as some of them were already taken.
Question/Statement 2: I understand port forwarding here as, when I connect to a remote server, and for me to be able to use my p2p client to download, I have to use my (corresponding) port in my torrent client matching the server and letting the communicate with eachother thus enabling downloading to my computer.

For example: qbittorrent port 12345 and Server port 12345 match eachother.
 
Question 3: The port that I have forwarded, do I have to forward more ports on more servers, depending on what server I connect to. 
Let me clarify a bit: I connect to Server XYZ in US for example and portforwarded there, next time i want to connect to server BCH in Holland (and haven't done a portforwarding there, it is my first time using that server), do I have to portforward for each server uniquely, or is my torrent client port now always connected in client area, and it doesn't matter to what server I connect to.

3. Now, that I have done this step, what am I missing?

I tried downloading a torrent file without VPN activated and it worked perfectly, it started to download quickly.
When I activated the VPN and click magnet link, its empty. See image below.
 


(Again, I am just testing out, I am not about downloading illegal files. But I would like to know how this works and if ever how one can protect him/her self from prying eyes.)

This are the steps that I have done so far and I don't understand. All constructive help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Cheers.

 

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

10 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Question 1: (To stop leaking  my IP adress if the connection somehow is exposed (?), did i get it right? It's like a safe mechanism)

It's a set of firewall rules to prevent any communication outside the tunnel to an AirVPN server.
 

12 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Question/Statement 2: I understand port forwarding here as, when I connect to a remote server, and for me to be able to use my p2p client to download, I have to use my (corresponding) port in my torrent client matching the server and letting the communicate with eachother thus enabling downloading to my computer.

See, there's this thing called Network Address Translation, a technique to share one or a few public IP addresses with many many others that are logically, from the internet's point of view, behind the routers having these public IPs. Essentially it's a firewall dropping everything. If you want to connect somewhere with a device behind such a router, the routers are smart enough to be able to track this connection with its characteristics – they know which host is connected where and they use this knowledge to allow a communication back to you through dynamic, short-lived port shares.
You have a very different picture if someone tries to connect to you instead, i.e., make the initial connection, for example you host a website and someone wants to access it: This someone would need to contact the public IP of your router. But your router is not hosting the website, some computer behind it does. And the router can't know that this someone wants to reach the website. How do we fix that? With port forwarding: Configure such a router's firewall to direct connections on a certain port to a certain host.

Next bit of info is the nature of P2P: You don't connect to someone anymore unless you are downloading – others must be able to connect to you, and not through a server but directly, or otherwise you'd be able to only contact clients that your client initially contacted itself. That's why it feels like it speeds up your throughput if you forwarded a port for such clients. A P2P client remains usable if you don't forward ports, but it's quite limited.
 

31 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Question 3: The port that I have forwarded, do I have to forward more ports on more servers, depending on what server I connect to. 

No, one port is enough and forwarded on all servers. It should match the remote port because clients tell the tracker and other DHT clients which port they're listening on.
 

35 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

When I activated the VPN and click magnet link, its empty. See image below.

Does it work with Linux torrents? They're well seeded and their trackers don't usually block VPNs. All the public trackers do block them quite a lot, though.
 

42 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

(Again, I am just testing out, I am not about downloading illegal files. But I would like to know how this works and if ever how one can protect him/her self from prying eyes.)

As long as it's no child pornography you are downloading this way, I don't think anyone will mind. You could've screenshot a Linux torrent, though; now everyone thinks you use YIFY.

[Bobba_fat 0]

Thank you so much for this. It still a little hard to understand everything, but I have to still do some more digging and reading to do on my own  

However, I still don't understand why/how I can download without the VPN from PB but not when I turn it on. What's the deal?

They're well seeded and their trackers don't usually block VPNs. All the public trackers do block them quite a lot, though.
Why are VPN's blocked?
What is a public tracker?
Is PirateBay a public tracker?
What is/does Linuxtorrent mean?
(I tried googling these question above, but not really finding an answer).

Thanks in advance.

(Edit I found out what was causing the problem. It was the network lock that has be manually set up to allow the connection.)

Solution:
preferences--> Network lock --> enable tickbox for

• Incoming
• Outgoing. 

 

Edited ... by Bobba_fat
I found a solution to network lock

[hellerlorder 0]

I'll lend this thread because this stuff gets way too technical for me to even explain. I am trying to figure out similar thing.

Currently I am running Eddie with network lock on but I haven't done any of this port forwarding stuff at all yet. I just installed the eddie, run it and started testing. However, if I try to download a linux distro via torrent, it downloads with no problem. If I run the ipleak net test in my browser and take the torrent detection test file from there in to my torrent client it only shows the VPN ip and a random port every time I retry it.

Is the VPN safe to use this way on torrents to hide my own ip adress from anyone trying to log it? If so, is the port forwarding guide part even required? I read the guides and user giganerds explanation on bobbas question two and I get the feeling this shouldn't work like this, so am I exposing myself currently if I decided to download something else than stuff thats legally free?

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

On 5/4/2020 at 7:41 PM, Bobba_fat said:

However, I still don't understand why/how I can download without the VPN from PB but not when I turn it on. What's the deal?

Classical P2P communication works like this: You import a torrent file into your torrent client. This file contains the hashes of all parts of the files this torrent file was created over. It also contains one or more trackers: These are simply services hosted on some server which keep track of everyone who is active on a torrent (hence the name); one active client is called a peer, a group of peers is called a swarm. The client gets a list of all active peers in the swarm and starts connecting to them and request random parts. A tracker knows everything about such a swarm: Which peers are online, the peers' IDs, used client and version, IP addresses, ports and their individual (download) progress of the files, among other things. Everytime your client finishes downloading a part, the tracker gets notified, though I think it can be adjusted to every 10, 50, 100, whatever parts.

It's crucial to know that it's not some black magic that is used to notify a tracker: Mostly normal HTTP is used, the same protocol that you use to browse websites with your browser. You may have heard that a few websites block access from IP addresses that are known to be anonymizers, like VPNs, because, well.. "reasons". So what is possible for websites is also possible for trackers. Access might simply be blocked by the operators of such a tracker.
 

On 5/4/2020 at 7:41 PM, Bobba_fat said:

What is a public tracker?

A public tracker is a tracker which allows you to register your own torrent files with it in an open fashion without you needing to set up a tracker yourself or register anywhere. The opposite of that is a private tracker which does not allow this and usually requires a registration.
 

On 5/4/2020 at 7:41 PM, Bobba_fat said:

Is PirateBay a public tracker?

The Pirate Bay is not a tracker, it's a so-called indexer. An indexer is hosting a directory of torrent files while making it searchable or otherwise more accessible for other programs, like browsers. TPB does not run a tracker, so the people uploading torrents there use public trackers, which in turn have shown to block VPNs from accessing them in the past.
 

On 5/4/2020 at 7:41 PM, Bobba_fat said:

What is/does Linuxtorrent mean?

Every Linux distribution usually offers torrent files so you can download their installation images with a torrent client. This is beneficial for everyone because it greatly reduces the load on the distribution creators' servers while allowing everyone to download at their own full throughput, since torrent clients download from many other clients, effectively maximizing what is possible with an internet connection. These torrents are completely legal; no one will sue you for downloading something that is free and open source, anyway. So people like to sit there and seed the torrents for others to download. As such, they are quite popular and therefore good for testing throughput with all kinds of connections.
 

On 5/4/2020 at 7:41 PM, Bobba_fat said:

Solution:
preferences--> Network lock --> enable tickbox for

• Incoming
• Outgoing. 

That's not a solution – you effectively soft-disabled Network Lock. Now you allow incoming and outgoing connections outside the tunnel. Check if you're really connected on ipleak.net or you risk exposing yourself.

[xXPANAGE28 0]

I have a question that falls nicely under OPs question(s). When i try to port foward port 6881 for qbtorrent it says the port is reserved by someone else. I checked the FAQ and the links listed by OP, but i still don't have the answer to my question: what does it mean when it says the port is in use by someone else?

I am hesitant to use an assigned port because i read somewhere on the internet that 6881-6889 allow for the fastest download speeds.

[Bobba_fat 0]

 

 

 

 

On 5/6/2020 at 2:54 PM, giganerd said:

 That's not a solution – you effectively soft-disabled Network Lock. Now you allow incoming and outgoing connections outside the tunnel. Check if you're really connected on ipleak.net or you risk exposing yourself.

So I did a check in ipleak.

My IP address when connected to airvpn and when not connected differentiate from one another.

However, I get these messages (when connected to airvpn) and guess it's not working as should.

If you are now connected to a VPN and you see your ISP IP, then your system is leaking WebRTC requests

If you are now connected to a VPN and between the detected DNS you see your ISP DNS, then your system is leaking DNS requests
 

 

 

 

 

On 5/6/2020 at 2:54 PM, giganerd said:

That's not a solution – you effectively soft-disabled Network Lock. Now you allow incoming and outgoing connections outside the tunnel. Check if you're really connected on ipleak.net or you risk exposing yourself.

So I should recheck those boxes? But then how can I download from TPB? 
(Do you have a link with screenshots of sorts on how I should set up my Airvpn to work optimally? That would be greatly appreciated)

Thank you so much for you help and understanding! I really appreciate it!

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

On 5/13/2020 at 1:52 AM, xXPANAGE28 said:

I have a question that falls nicely under OPs question(s). When i try to port foward port 6881 for qbtorrent it says the port is reserved by someone else. I checked the FAQ and the links listed by OP, but i still don't have the answer to my question: what does it mean when it says the port is in use by someone else?

If someone else forwarded it to his account, you can't use the same for yours.
What would that look like, anyway? Someone forwards port 9000 and uses it with BitTorrent, then someone else connects to the same server and wants to use the same port… and you got yourself a collision.
 

On 5/13/2020 at 1:52 AM, xXPANAGE28 said:

I am hesitant to use an assigned port because i read somewhere on the internet that 6881-6889 allow for the fastest download speeds.

Well, "somewhere on the internet" they also say American astronauts never were on the moon.
The fact about these ports is that they are the standard BitTorrent ports, so they are well-known, more or less. Some ISPs decide to restrict them, others prioritize them, most leave them be. Doesn't really matter if it's port 6885, 9000 or 55555 you're using. If those standard ports are already taken, you must use others.

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

@Bobba_fat
If you look closely, those "messages" are no messages, but plain text of the website. It's always shown. This text implores you to make your own calculations.

And yes, recheck them.

You download from TPB as you always would; first you connect to AirVPN, though. It's really only that.

[Flx 76]

3 hours ago, giganerd said:

You download from TPB as you always would; first you connect to AirVPN, though. It's really only that.

You may want to explain to OP here what happens before a connect to an AirVPN server. I know that a lot of members don't even set their DNS as manual. (e.g. 10.4.0.1). If your qbittorrent client has "start with Windows" option enabled. Untick it.
Login in your Eddie UI and yes first connect to AirVPN. Then launch your qtorrent client.



 

[Bobba_fat 0]

Thank you for the reply.

I set again incoming and outgoing to block. As should be?

On 5/19/2020 at 8:47 PM, giganerd said:

@Bobba_fat
If you look closely, those "messages" are no messages, but plain text of the website. It's always shown. This text implores you to make your own calculations.

And yes, recheck them.

You download from TPB as you always would; first you connect to AirVPN, though. It's really only that.

So, again. When enabling the lock, I get this. It only keeps loading but never finding the files? Any suggestions as to why this keeps happening and how I can enable my lock and download the file I want? I tried several other files, the same result. 



How "worried" should I be if I don't have the lock on? Like, I'm not trying hacking into NASA or anything, but I still would like to keep my online privacy which is why I got this application in the first place, also I would like to be able to understand when something is not working properly as should.

Thank you for your patience and answers guys!
 

 

 

 

 

 

3

On 5/20/2020 at 12:15 AM, Flx said:

You may want to explain to OP here what happens before a connect to an AirVPN server. I know that a lot of members don't even set their DNS as manual. (e.g. 10.4.0.1). If your qbittorrent client has "start with Windows" option enabled. Untick it.
Login in your Eddie UI and yes first connect to AirVPN. Then launch your qtorrent client.



 

I haven't set my DNS manual. Where should I set it manual? (Qbit or Eddie)
Qbit was already unchecked. It doesn't start with Windows, neither does Eddie UI start with windows.


"Login in your Eddie UI and yes first connect to AirVPN. Then launch your qtorrent client."
I do connect with Eddie UI
So that is not the problem, it works perfectly fine. It's when I first click on the Network Lock and then connect to a server that it doesn't work

Any suggestions? Thanks. Edited ... by Bobba_fat

[Flx 76]

5 hours ago, Bobba_fat said:

I haven't set my DNS manual. Where should I set it manual? (Qbit or Eddie)
Qbit was already unchecked. It doesn't start with Windows, neither does Eddie UI start with windows.

Neither. You do that on your main NiC adapter(Ethernet/Wifi). Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network Connections.-->>Ethernet-->Properties-->Internet Protocol version v4(TCP/IPv4).
In Qbit you don't have the option to set your own DNS servers as far as I know. Such as 10.4.0.1/10.5.0.1.
That is when "Block all your interfaces except TAP/VPN" comes in handy.(Link below)

 

[Bobba_fat 0]

What should i set my Ip adress to? I have it currently automatically.

[Flx 76]

11 hours ago, Bobba_fat said:

What should i set my Ip adress to? I have it currently automatically.

First image above-->Untick the QoS option.
Second image above-->You can leave it as "Obtain an IP as automatic" for IP.  For the DNS Click "Use the following DNS server addresses:" Set that to 10.4.0.1 as "Preferred DNS server" DNS1.
What languange is that NL?

[NoiselessOwl 26]

19 hours ago, Flx said:

What languange is that NL?

Å/å are common in Scandinavian language. According to Google Translate, it is Swedish.

[Bobba_fat 0]

On 5/26/2020 at 3:46 AM, Flx said:

First image above-->Untick the QoS option.
Second image above-->You can leave it as "Obtain an IP as automatic" for IP.  For the DNS Click "Use the following DNS server addresses:" Set that to 10.4.0.1 as "Preferred DNS server" DNS1.
What languange is that NL?

Does changing any of these affect my "normal" internet usage? I don't intend to use the AIRVPN at all times.

It's Swedish!
(Now I have to kill you, i hope you used your airvpn to protect your tracks  )

Thanks!

Edit: YES! That did the trick. I set it like this. I didn't know where to set DNS1(?)



Btw, by setting DNS to 10.4.0.1 is that universal? If anyone wants to do the same, they just have to do the same?

I was thinking of writing a mini guide for newbies like myself who may encounter this problem cause the other ones are way to comprehensive as a newbie (i still am).
What does that address do?

Thanks for the help everyone, really appreciate it!

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

It's possible to script this, in case you want to change DNS settings with a click of a button. I posted my script from back in my Windows days somewhere here, but I can't find it anymore, the procedure looks something like this, though:

[Bobba_fat 0]

16 minutes ago, giganerd said:

It's possible to script this, in case you want to change DNS settings with a click of a button. I posted my script from back in my Windows days somewhere here, but I can't find it anymore, the procedure looks something like this, though:

Thank you GN. Currently it's working fine. As is.
Is there any reason for me to script anything? I'm not sure I understand your friendly intentions. (I'm very new so sorry for my ignorance)
Do I have to fill in the information every time for the DNS or am I missing something?
& thanks for all the help and concern, much appreciated.

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

26 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Thank you GN. Currently it's working fine. As is.

Was that you in another thread who called me GN or someone else? I'm still not used to it. Sounds badass, though.
People used to call me gigan once because I wrote my name with a 3 instead of the e. They thought it was pronounced "gigan the third". So I changed the name and it stopped.
 

26 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Is there any reason for me to script anything? I'm not sure I understand your friendly intentions. (I'm very new so sorry for my ignorance)

Well, 10.4.0.1 will be there forever now until you change it manually. Since AirDNS is not reachable from outside the tunnel to AirVPN, DNS won't work if you are not connected. I used said script to switch between 10.4.0.1 only and your usual DNS server from your router or so.

[Bobba_fat 0]

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

13 minutes ago, giganerd said:

Was that you in another thread who called me GN or someone else? I'm still not used to it. Sounds badass, though.
People used to call me gigan once because I wrote my name with a 3 instead of the e. They thought it was pronounced "gigan the third". So I changed the name and it stopped.

Not me, just in this thread. If you like by all means GN.

 

 

 

 

15 minutes ago, giganerd said:

Well, 10.4.0.1 will be there forever now until you change it manually. Since AirDNS is not reachable from outside the tunnel to AirVPN, DNS won't work if you are not connected. I used said script to switch between 10.4.0.1 only and your usual DNS server from your router or so.

If I understand you right, the same problem that I realized that I have, which is to start EddieUI every time otherwise my regular internet won't work. Meaning that with the recommended script I can easily switch between DNS settings? I will look into that. Unless you would be willing to share what was written since there is ALOT of dialogue going on.

[OpenSourcerer 1442]

If I happen to stumble across it, I will link it here. I'm currently browsing through my reputation history, anyway; might as well find the script.

[Flx 76]

12 hours ago, giganerd said:

If I happen to stumble across it, I will link it here.

Here is one way you can do it--->>https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/17440-guide-fix-for-tap-adapter-in-windows/?do=findComment&comment=53796

15 hours ago, Bobba_fat said:

Does changing any of these affect my "normal" internet usage? I don't intend to use the AIRVPN at all times.

It's Swedish!
(Now I have to kill you, i hope you used your airvpn to protect your tracks  )

Well it's all Swedish to me
You wanna "kill me"? What for? Profiled me yet?
 

[Bobba_fat 0]

5 hours ago, Flx said:

Here is one way you can do it--->>https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/17440-guide-fix-for-tap-adapter-in-windows/?do=findComment&comment=53796 Well it's all Swedish to me
You wanna "kill me"? What for? Profiled me yet?

It's a little too advanced for me. What does this exactly do? Where do i use it/put it? I read through the whole discussion, didn't make much sense for me 😕

My situation right now is this: Currently I have set my DNS manual to the one you suggested before, however, I have to launch EddieUI every time to be able to use the internet.
It's not a bad thing per se, but most of the time I don't need to use it.

Is there a way to go around this somehow rather than going manually and setting and resetting my DNS every time I would like to use the EddieUi/airvpn with the lock.
If so, please do share for a non initiated with the computer and network literacy of a highly intelligent 4-year-old 🤣 it would be highly appreciated.

I can't believe how hard it has been to use AIRVPN (Which some of it is on me as well, but I feel this process should be more automated, so that "we" uninterested/unitiated should be able to click on one button and have it all in one go. I understand I sound arrogant(?) but my point is, I just really want a simple way to sometimes hide my online privacy for whatever reasons and not all the hassle that comes with it. 🙏

[Flx 76]

8 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

Is there a way to go around this somehow rather than going manually and setting and resetting my DNS every time I would like to use the EddieUi/airvpn with the lock.
If so, please do share for a non initiated with the computer and network literacy of a highly intelligent 4-year-old 🤣 it would be highly appreciated.

Then pick a server from OpenNIC, one from Sweden and paste that in/for DNS 2.

10 minutes ago, Bobba_fat said:

I understand I sound arrogant(?)

You think? Letz just say you try to have some fun...for the "sake of whatever reason". "I have to kill you" may be funny to you. It is not to me or anyone for that matter.

[eburom 16]

Hi @Flx and @giganerd, I'm a bit surprised with some of the things I'm reading here about manual setting of DNS. 
I don't use windows that much but, when I do, I just run eddie-ui at the very beginning. If I check ipleak.net there's a single ip in the DNS Address section (AirVPN servers), doesn't this mean that eddie already took care of my systems DNS handling and that it's being properly tunneled and handled through Airvpn's server? Do I still need to manually set this 10.4.0.1  in my network adapters settings? why?
Eddie also comes with a DNS section in its settings with some windows Specific options:

Microsoft Windows Only:

    Force all network interfaces for DNS: [ ]
                         Ensure DNS Lock: [v]
        Ignore IPv6 DNS pushed by server: [ ]

I thought it was no use manually setting DNS since eddie would care of DNS setting and overwrite it, Am I missing something here?

Thanks for your time.