SSH and Port Forwarding with PIA from Ubuntu (remote) to iMac (host)

Hi all,

I recently began working with port forwarding and ssh tunnels. Without PIA, I was able to successfully ssh from my Ubuntu laptop that was on a different network to my iMac on my home network. I used port 22 and required user login and had a strong password. I was told this was still not a secure setup and I should use ssh keys and VPN. I need help understanding how PIA changes my setup. 

Originally, I would use `ssh [email protected] -p 22' from Ubuntu and that would let me log into my iMac remotely. I had to setup my router, netgear nighthawk, with port forwarding. I set it up to forward port 22 to my iMacs ip address. Now that I am using PIA, I'm not sure how to set this up. When I connect to PIA, my router's homepage is unavailable. What settings do I need to setup on my router for this? Do I adjust the router's VPN settings and port forwarding? When I run `ssh [email protected] -p 22' from Ubuntu, do I use the router ip address still, or the new PIA ip address?

I would think in my router settings, I would forward the PIA port number to the PIA ip address. Then I would still use `ssh [email protected] -p PIA_Port_Number' but my router won't let me put in the PIA ip address as an internal address--"This IP address should be the same subnet as the LAN IP address". I tried my original setup but with the new port number and that didn't work. I'm pretty new to all of this, any help will be much appreciated.
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