Static Port forwarding
Please change the dynamic port forwarding to static port forwarding why:
In my BitTorrent client I have +200 torrents, dynamic port is boring because EVERY TIME I connect to a server I have to change the port in the BitTorrent client settings and the re-announcement is really long for all my torrents.
Please add to the ProtonVPN dashboard panel or in the application, the possibility to add static port like MullvadVPN do, example for the ProtonVPN Plus plans add the possibility to add 10 random forwarded ports.
Plus static forwarded port may work if you use the manual configuration: OpenVPN config file, Wireguard config file or IKEv2 not just in the ProtonVPN app.
The Idea is like you go into the ProtonVPN dashboard and you chose the country who you want your forwarded port and a random port number will be generated like 59823 and this port will be forwarded to all servers in the region you choose like all servers in Paris.
Then you can connect to any server in Paris and the port you received will be forwarded.
Please add this it's more efficient than dynamic ports.
Darwin
shared this idea
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Thomas
commented
Any update from the Protonmail team on this? Please ensure that it's implemented on Linux when it does get done.
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Jay
commented
2 years later and still no progress... This is critically needed. They can even charge a bit extra. I have Windscribe VPN simply due to fact they have static IPs. Would be nice to only use Proton
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Julien
commented
Yes please!
The only other alternative is the NAT-PMP feature. It works but it's really tricky... One needs to make the application send port forwarding requests to the VPN gateway and not the normal one (eg. home router).
The NAT-PMP RFC clearly states that it is not designed for that:
Clients always send their NAT-PMP requests to their default gateway,
as learned via DHCP [RFC2131], or similar means. This protocol is
designed for small home networks, with a single logical link (subnet)
where the client's default gateway is also the NAT for that network.
For more complicated networks where the NAT is some device other than
the client's default gateway, this protocol is not appropriate. -
Max Mustermann commented
Please make it available outside of any windows or linux client. Should be working also on pfsense and opnsense, this is for now nearly impossible to configure this.
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Alex Zilberman commented
Why not add functionality to every protonvpn client that runs something on connect/disconnect and everything in between? Also in that functionality you can set environment variables with port forward port and any other relevant data about the connection like what country you are connected to w/e else. it would make scripting it all more automated
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prmy3cnt
commented
Made an automation script that solves this issue in two steps and runs at windows login:
1. Opens the client app copies the port.
2. Logs into Qbittorrent local Webui In headless mode and updates the port.
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Another Solution that would help is if the Dynamic forwarded port is reported in the users account settings. That way it can be scraped and used to update Bittorrent Clients. -
Mike
commented
This needs to be supported outside of the apps, with wireguard conf files.
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Linoux
commented
Yeah that would be great. What I used with my previous vpn provider was a script that runs when the vpn was reconnected. It did edit the qBittorrent config file to change the port and restarted qBittorrent. The script requested the forwarded port through a cmd command of the vpn client. It is not the optimal solution but it works. Unfortunately this doesn't work for ProtonVPN because they don't support cmd commands in their Windows application. The best solution would be a static portforwarding or a feature that ProtonVPN is able to request to change the settings of the torrent client. I'm not a programmer or something but I think it should be possible through the webinterfaces of the torrent clients (but I understand that it's a very specific feature for a vpn client). Otherwise I would be satisfied with cmd/Powershell support in the Windows client.
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James
commented
Wouldn't that limit the number of users for a whole region to just the 16,000-or-so dynamic ports available? I have no idea how many customers are using each region, but I can imagine it easily becoming more than that if it hasn't already. I think the best you could hope for is being reserved a randomly selected static IP on a certain server that remains tied to your account for a certain amount of time after disconnecting - but both that solution and your proposed solution would introduce significant privacy compromises. For example: the longer you use the same port number, the more time a court or agency has to order that the IP address currently tied to that port number be handed over. Proton doesn't keep logs, so as soon as you rotate to a different port there is no longer any way for a court or agency to figure out who was using the previous port at the time in question. So from a privacy standpoint, it's actually advantageous to change ports periodically, and perhaps a better feature request would be a way to tell applications to change their listening port when the VPN connects.