What does the port forwarding option do and why is it good for torrent?

SkrellSkrell
edited May 2014 in P2P Support
Can someone please explain to me what the port forwarding option in the PIA client do and how it helps with torrenting?  I have some understanding of what it means to forward a port on my router, but i don't see how this is similar? 
Some questions/thoughts:
1.  Is the port that is being forwarded the one on the server to which i'm connecting (i.e. the server in Switzerland is receiving data from somewhere on a # port and it needs to forward that data back to my PC) ?  
2.  Or is the port the one on my router that is being sent data from Switzerland and i need to then forward THIS port to my local PC?
3.  Do i need to add the port # that the PIA client gives me to my router's list of forwarded ports? 
4.  Do i need to forward any ports in general for my VPN to work optimally?

Comments

  • OmniNegroOmniNegro
    Are you using the PIA client on your PC? If so the port forwarding is done on the PC alone.

    And if you send data to this forum on port 1000, there may be others sending data on that port too. The server itself decides what to reassign that port to for it's own uses. The server may accept that data on port 1001 or any other number. Port forwarding is about opening a hole for you to be able to send data. Your router may have nothing to do with it. But in most cases, it will handle that problem on it's own.

    Think of it like this. You send a packet with the contents "Hello" to 10.10.10.10 on port 1000. The server that is 10.10.10.10 receives this data on port 2000 and sees that you sent it to port 1000 and when it sends a response back to you it may send it on a different port altogether, but it will send it *to* port 1000 on your system.

    That is a greatly simplified way of thinking of it, and not actually very accurate either. But I hope this helps a bit.
  • SkrellSkrell
    Yea i'm using the PIA client on my PC.   I am still unclear how this port forwarding is different and/or related to the port forwarding I do on my router?  If the port that is forward by PIA Client is a number that isn't forwarding in my router hardware settings then how would this work? 
  • VPNVPN
    edited May 2014
    1. Yes.
    2. No.
    3. No, because 2. is also no.
    4. No, but it may need a firewall exception.

    To generalize 1 and 2: Connections or packets to the forwarded port on the server will be sent to the device with the VPN client - that can be your router (if you have configured your router to run a VPN client for your network), but can also be your PC with the PIA Manager client software.
    The above answers assume that your PC runs the VPN client, because in most cases where users ask questions about it, it is :)

    The router doesn't know about the incoming packets or the forwarded port, because these packets are tunneled between your PC and the VPN server.
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