VPN and port forwarding - eviltoast

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/969323

I am looking to buy a VPN subscription, and im interested in getting one that allows port forwarding. Found a few that still allows this, including pure VPN and air VPN which seem to offer good value for money, at least on the the long term plans. Any feedback on these two?

I used to have nordvpn, and used it for 3 years, and once that subscription ran out, have been using mullvad so far. Performance wise mullvad hasnt disappointed me or anything, but now im looking to find one that allows port forwarding.

I also have a doubt regarding the whole port forwarding thing, does the VPN having this feature enable to do it even if my ISP doesnt allow port forwarding? From the videos and articles I read, VPN port forwarding is just something you do inside their native apps and such, so if the ISP hasnt enabled port forwarding for me (which I know it hasnt, because tried to get jellyfin working the other day, and couldnt get the ports to open even after setting everything up in my router), will I still be able to do it? I tried searching around with this query, but didnt really find anything.

  • Shrek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I also host VPS for lots of things. However, I don’t think that’s what you want here. I think you are really looking for two separate things. VPN for torrenting and bypassing geographic restrictions. Spot on. Go with a cheap VPN that allows torrenting and have fun.

    Now, you want to do the media sharing thing with Jellyfin. Using a commercial VPN doesn’t help here. It’s only protecting you from giving your IP address to people you share Jellyfin with. But, if you trust them to share a service from your local network, you should probably trust them with your IP. Puting it on a VPN still leaves your Jellyfin exposed on the open internet where anyone can try to break in. It’s just not your local IP. Does that make sense?

    Because of the above, I would say to port forward on your home internet instead. However, I don’t suggest this either! Even if you are super knowledgeable, it’s best to not expose anything to the internet unless you have to. Jellyfin is pretty safe, but the best thing would be to use you want a VPN. So, I am a little confusing haha! Separate to the commercial VPN in the first part, you should setup a VPN where your network is the private network. I would highly suggest Wireguard. You can do all the setup and it’s a little overwhelming. Or you can try Tailscale which uses Wireguard but it does all of the configuration for you. It is a paid product but for your needs I highly doubt you would fall out of the free plan.

    https://www.ethanmad.com/post/jellyfin_remote_access/

    You don’t need to do the reverse proxy part of that either btw.

    https://tailscale.com/kb/1084/sharing

    That’ll show you how to share with family/friends

    • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thats really helpful, I think I am going to try this out. The whole VPN and port forwarding feature I was curious about happened because my ISP doesnt allow port forwarding and I was unable to set it up for sharing my jellyfin. I will try to read the link you shared and try what I can do! Thanks a lot!