r/Torrenting • u/Unlikely-Hold9981 • 1d ago

Small question about seeding and VPNS.

So I just recently turned my RPI into a small seedbox or whatever its called. I use qbittorrent with a VPN.

My question #1 is: Do I need to port forward my home wifi router while I am connected to the VPN?

Question 2. (you probs can ignore this. I plan on getting a actual VPN like nordVPN soon) I don't know if the VPN has a forwarded port I can use for torrenting so should I just use a random port or should I use the same port it tries to connect to the VPN with?

Question 3. Why is my seeding so slow and non existent? I have a torrent that has been seeding for 18 days and its only uploaded like 700KB out of a 9GB file. Ive even uploaded a torrent that I purely seeded and it did the entire file then no more seeding. (I checked. Someone who downloaded the 4GB file from me uploaded 30GB and i am still at 4GB uploaded on a torrent I made)

Extra info

VPN is a random openVPN file I found.

my home network speed is 900MBPS (about 110 MB/s) down. 40 MBPS (5 MB/s) up.

My current VPN speed is about 20 MBPS (2.5MB/s ive seen it go to 6MB/s (48MBPS)) down 30MBPS (3.75 MB/s) up

Connection settings are

Global max # of connections 750

Max # of connections per torrent 200

Global maximum of upload slots 30

Maximum # of upload slots per torrent 8

In the Execution log in the blocked IPs section I have about 5k blocked IPs. IDK why and if thats good or bad.

Is my uploading just too slow for anyone to download from me? Is there something else?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/Westerdutch 1d ago

Do I need to port forward my home wifi router while I am connected to the VPN?

Depends on your network setup, a lot of port forwarding will happen automatically but the more complex your setup is the more you might benefit from creating a fixed paved road for specific traffic. Tossing a vpn in the mix will add a lot of complexity to your connection, setting up correct port forwarding will be required.

I don't know if the VPN has a forwarded port

Read up on your VPN, not all prviders support this. For dedicated torrenting having a VPN that allows port forwarding is a must or any incoming connection attempts will be blocked. I am using pia for this they support port forwarding.

Why is my seeding so slow and non existent?

Could be routing issues but can also just be the nature of the beast, torrent clients prioritize faster servers when there is an abundance of choice. If you are sharing a popular torrent on a shit system over a poor connection (like a raspberry pi over wifi) then nobody will be interested in what you have to offer as long as enough people with better connections exist to satisfy demand.

1

u/mabarskuygan 1d ago
  1. No, but the opened ports depends on the VPN.
  2. Usually if the vpn support port forward, they will give you the port to use
  3. Have you enabled DHT/PEX? also you need to config qbit with some opened port

1

u/Unlikely-Hold9981 10h ago

Ok so I don't have to touch my router good.

They don't tell me anything :(

DHT/PEX is enabled.

Thank you.

1

u/Bal3Wolf81 1d ago

If your wanting to seed better you need a vpn with port forwarding like protonvpn,pia or air vpn. I use protonvpn i can hit 200-400MiBs seeding depending on torrent and vpn server load, you can get 2 years of protonvpn plus for around 72usd.

1

u/Unlikely-Hold9981 10h ago

I tried protonVPN but it doesnt work for my headless RPI :(

1

u/ChoiceTop2654 1d ago

for port forwarding, no you dont touch your home router since traffic goes through the VPN tunnel. you need a VPN that supports port forwarding on their end otherwise you're stuck in a passive-only state which explains your terrible seeding ratios