ANSWERED Extremely low torrent speeds sinds last week despite correct port forwarding and WireGuard

[Peter Laanstra 0]

Hi AirVPN community,

 

I’m experiencing very low torrent speeds (max 10KiB/s) on my NL servers, despite everything being correctly configured. This is unusual because until recently, I was getting high speeds on the same setup.

 

Setup:

• VPN: AirVPN, WireGuard

• Client: Gluetun Docker container

• qBittorrent: binded to interface tun0, optional IP: all addresses

• Forwarded port: assigned through AirVPN Client Area and verified open (TCP + UDP)

• MTU: 1420

• Firewall settings: FIREWALL_VPN_INPUT_PORTS removed to avoid conflicts

• Server tried: NL2 and the new NL servers Taiyangshou / Vindemiatrix

• LAN: 192.168.1.0/24 allowed outbound

 

What I observed:

• Speedtest in Gluetun container: 170–330 Mbit/s download, 220–260 Mbit/s upload

• qBittorrent: multiple torrents running with hundreds to thousands of seeds, download stuck at total max 10 KiB/s max, barely any improvement with multiple torrents.
  Even torrents with many seeds run at e few B/s!

• Forwarded port is open and correctly set in qBittorrent

• Everything works fine technically — Gluetun connects, WireGuard establishes, tun0 IP assigned

 

Notes:

• This behavior is new sinds last week; before this, torrents downloaded at several MB/s on the same NL nodes

• All technical aspects of port forwarding, MTU, Docker setup have been verified

 

Questions:

1. Is there a new P2P throttling policy on the NL servers?

2. Are there known issues with WireGuard and torrent throughput via Gluetun?

3. Could there be something else limiting torrent speeds that I should check?

 

Any insights or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

— Peter

[Staff 10464]

@Peter Laanstra

Hello!

There isn't (and there never was) any throttling policy at all on any AirVPN server. Please test directly from the host (no containers) to quickly discern whether the problem is GlueTun specific or not. Please test different torrent software as well as smaller WireGuard interface MTU (start testing from 1280 bytes).

On GlueTun, FIREWALL_VPN_INPUT_PORTS environment variable must be set properly. The fact that you unset it sounds like an error: why do you say that you don't set it to avoid firewall conflicts? This environment variable is read by the container exactly for firewall rules. If the variable is empty, no unsolicited incoming packets will be allowed on tun0 (or any other VPN interface). Please feel free to elaborate.

Kind regards
 

[Peter Laanstra 0]

2 hours ago, Staff said:

@Peter Laanstra

Hello!

There isn't (and there never was) any throttling policy at all on any AirVPN server. Please test directly from the host (no containers) to quickly discern whether the problem is GlueTun specific or not. Please test different torrent software as well as smaller WireGuard interface MTU (start testing from 1280 bytes).

On GlueTun, FIREWALL_VPN_INPUT_PORTS environment variable must be set properly. The fact that you unset it sounds like an error: why do you say that you don't set it to avoid firewall conflicts? This environment variable is read by the container exactly for firewall rules. If the variable is empty, no unsolicited incoming packets will be allowed on tun0 (or any other VPN interface). Please feel free to elaborate.

Kind regards
 

Hi AirVPN Team,

Thank you very much for your detailed response and suggestions. I really appreciate the guidance.

Following your advice, I tested Gluetun and qBittorrent on a different OS and server, freshly installed, and the first results look very promising — for example, I’m now seeing around 20 MiB/s downloading the Ubuntu ISO. I will continue to explore and test this setup further.

I also wanted to note that I initially followed a suggestion from ChatGPT to leave FIREWALL_VPN_INPUT_PORTS unset, but of course, that was a mistake — not everything you read should be taken at face value 😉.

I understand that I’ll need to reconfigure everything, but I will be using the new server endpoint:

• WIREGUARD_ADDRESSES=10.170.0.132/32

• WIREGUARD_ENDPOINT=taiyangshou.vpn.airdns.org:1637

• WIREGUARD_MTU=1280

• SERVER_COUNTRIES=Netherlands

• FIREWALL_VPN_INPUT_PORTS=xxxx,xxxx,xxxx

• TZ=Europe/Amsterdam

• FIREWALL_OUTBOUND_SUBNETS=192.168.1.0/24

Thanks again for your support and for clarifying how the firewall rules work — it really helped me pinpoint the issue.

 

Best regards

[Peter Laanstra 0]

@Staff All is working now after complete new install of Gluetun and qBittorrent. I don't know what changed in the past week and what caused the problem. I used config for long time.
If you want you can delete this tread.

[OddMagnet 0]

I'm not sure if my issue is similar enough or if I should make my own topic, but I thought I'd post here first

Since yesterday I noticed slow speeds when going through VPN, roughly 5-10% of what I usually had
On my NAS (running Unraid), I have some containers that are bound to go through VPN, the speed for those containers has dropped significantly.
On the same NAS I also have a container running for speedtests, which does not go through the VPN, which gets about the maximum speeds possible from my provider.

On my PC, using speedtest.net, I get full speeds. But when I start Eddie and test with VPN enabled (same server), I get the same low speeds as my NAS does.
edit: I just tested a different server (Berlin, Germany instead of one in Stockholm, Sweden) and while I still don't get nearly the same as without VPN, it's much closer (Without: ~1Gbit/s, Berlin-VPN: ~220Mbit/s, Stockholm-VPN: ~90Mbit/s). 
Still, until recently I always got close to what my connection offers

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot what exactly is causing this?

Edited ... by OddMagnet

[AG999 20]

On 2/2/2026 at 3:12 PM, Peter Laanstra said:

 

You actually have set a speed limit of 10 kb/s, might have been by accident of clicking that little speedometer icon

[Peter Laanstra 0]

36 minutes ago, AG999 said:

On 2/2/2026 at 12:12 PM, Peter Laanstra said:

 

You actually have set a speed limit of 10 kb/s, might have been by accident of clicking that little speedometer icon

OMG that's right @ag999. LMAO! Just tested it and was the same. Now I know.
I did not know this was a feature to click on that speedometer. 🙈
Hope it helps others...

Anyway, I did some CLI speedtests in my gluetun conainer (I have a 1Gbit connection). I think it is what it is...

/ # speedtest
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Global Layer (213.152.161.181)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Qonnected B.V. (Amsterdam) [16.73 km]: 11.237 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 60.14 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 44.11 Mbit/s
/ # speedtest
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Global Layer (213.152.161.181)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Qonnected B.V. (Amsterdam) [16.73 km]: 12.603 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 28.36 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 25.01 Mbit/s

Edited ... by Peter Laanstra