I’m relatively new to more advanced network configuration (more advanced than just plugging things in, at least), but I recently got a VPN and want to enable port forwarding for p2p. I followed steps to generate a specified port via my VPN, then input that port for incoming connections into my p2p client, and also set up that external port tied to my internal IP in my router settings, but https://portchecker.co/ says the port in question is still closed. I’ve tried everything I can think of from following a few guides online to get this setup, but nothing I’ve done has opened that port.
After doing some more digging, it looks like I have a dynamic IP which cannot be used for port forwarding and my ISP (Xfinity) doesn’t provide static IPs for residential customers – am I SOL here?
If you have a commercial VPN, none of your port forwarding settings on your router matter. Nor does a dynamic IP. (I mean you can port forward with a dynamic IP anyway, but that isn’t what you’re trying to do.
All you need is the port forward through your VPN and specify that port in your p2p program. You probably need the internal and external ports to match though.
You need your p2p program running when you run the port test.
okay that’s what I thought about the VPN specific port forward and not needing to adjust any router settings! but because the port was still registering as closed I wasn’t sure. i’ll poke around my VPN and p2p client settings a bit more and see if anything isn’t matching up there, like if the client is still trying to use my router’s blocked ports instead of the specified VPN port or something. thanks!
Unrelated to port forwarding, to be sure your ip doesn’t leak bind your BitTorrent client to your VPN