What is the best server . . . ???

[hammerman 3]

hello,

 

i am going to switch to a router to access airvpn and i wanted to know what ip address i should use in the setup.

 

if i am in philadelphia and wish to connect to a canadian server, i see to options.

 

1.  use the ip address for the whole country of canada and hopefully airvpn will select the best server for me like eddie does.

 

2.  try to pick the best server myself by looking at the status pages.

 

i get confused because the stats on the status page under geographical distribution shows the "best" server. but that always changes.

when i use the client configurator would i be picking the one with the lowest ping time?

 

thanks

[OpenSourcerer 1360]

In my experience picking the one with the shortest BGP route is a good idea. Spoken in easier terms, yes, try to pick a server with the smallest latency value.

 

And yes, the best server changes. It's a rating system which calculates a certain value every five minutes for every server. This value is based on many things like latency, number of users, used bandwidth, etc. The server with the best value in a country or on the planet will win the "best server" prize for at least five minutes.

 

(Sent via Tapatalk - this generally means I'm not sitting in front of my PC)

[zhang888 1065]

You can use DNS in your router in order to automatically select the best server in any country.

 

ca.vpn.airdns.org would redirect you to the best available Canadian server. It has a TTL value of 300 seconds

which means that every 5 minutes, if the best server was changed, you will be redirected to a new one.

Try this method.

[hammerman 3]

thanks for the help!

 

as per giganerd, should the winner of the "best server prize" be the same one eddie has chosen for me?

your method seems to work . . . except if airvpn deletes that server or adds another that is closer.

then i think i have to go through the setup all over again.

 

and for zhang888, instead of me doing the guess work, somehow my router does the dns work for me?

i don't know exactly how that works, but if all i have to do is enter ca.vpn.airdns.org as the server host address then that's great.

 

i will just follow the pfsense guide and use ca.vpn.airdns.org and input the corresponding data from the config generator.

 

thanks again.

[zhang888 1065]

but if all i have to do is enter ca.vpn.airdns.org as the server host address then that's great.

 

 

That's correct. Air made a great implementation of a Round-Robin DNS system for OpenVPN.

[OpenSourcerer 1360]

Eddie doesn't choose, I think, it fetches the result. AirVPN's server does the math.

 

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[Staff 9761]

Eddie doesn't choose, I think, it fetches the result. AirVPN's server does the math.

 

(Sent via Tapatalk - this generally means I'm not sitting in front of my PC)

 

Hi!

 

Actually Eddie adds two important parameters to the formula for the servers rating: latency from the node in which it runs, and failed connection(s) to a VPN server (if any) again from the node it runs in. Eddie choice therefore can differ from the equivalent (same area) resolution of *.vpn.airdns.org, and choices of different Eddies in different systems for the same area can be different as well.

 

Kind regards

[OpenSourcerer 1360]

Thought so. Good to have a confirmation

 

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[hammerman 3]

thanks everyone for the advice.

i am in toronto, canada for a bit and decided to try out the us.vpn.airdns.org address.

it connects me to florida even though chicago is much closer.

chicago isn't just closer, it also shows the lowest ping time.

seems strange but it is working fine.

[zhang888 1065]

thanks everyone for the advice.

i am in toronto, canada for a bit and decided to try out the us.vpn.airdns.org address.

it connects me to florida even though chicago is much closer.

chicago isn't just closer, it also shows the lowest ping time.

seems strange but it is working fine.

 

Ping and Proximity is something very individual, and requires additional software to function (like the Eddie client).

A DNS query is something much simpler than that, it is not individual aware, it is just connected to a load balance

system that will tell you which server has the current lowest b/w utilization. There is quite a difference.

 

If you want it location/ping based, usually you will have to stick with a single server that works fine for you, and

change it only when it's highly overloaded (which doesn't happen with Air, except the FR server).

[hammerman 3]

just trying to clarify . . .

when i use eddie from toronto, it connects me to chicago mainly because of ping and proximity?

when i use us.vpn.airdns.org it connects me to the server with the lowest bandwidth?

 

so how do i connect to the server which gives me the fastest downloads?

i don't understand why when i connect from toronto to the u.s. if i use eddie it picks chicago, but now for some reason when i use us.vpn.airdns.org it picks the farthest possible server in los angeles. it used to be florida now it's los angeles.

 

shouldn't the us.vpn.airdns.org pick up the new server in philadelphia?