Port forwarding on Windows 10

ChuckFishChuckFish
in Windows VPN Setup
I've used PIA on Windows 7 for several years, with port forwarding active for much of the last year - it's a nice speed boost for many downloads.  I updated my O/S to Windows 10 (x64) and now I find the port forwarding not working.  I did find I could open the PIA selected port for forwarding "manually" via the Windows Defender Firewall facility, but why doesn't forwarding "just work" like it did on Windows 7?  Did Microsoft throw yet another wrench into the works???

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    Hello ChuckFish,

    Thank you for the inquiry. We do not directly support port forwarding, but we make is possible on our service. When using port forwarding, you assign ports that remain open, for applications on your computer to use unrestricted. This is sometimes necessary for specific applications so that they can access their servers uninhibited (such as torrents, etc.). The security risk associated with this, however, is that if in the unlikely case someone were to:

    a) somehow know your local IP address (not the virtual IP that our VPN grants), 
    b) happened to be watching/scanning that IP for available, open ports, then it's possible they could use one of these open ports to access/bypass the VPN tunnel, allowing access to your computer.

    While it is unlikely that such would ever occur, it is still a very remote possibility, and as such, we make users aware of this issue.

    With that said the Port Forwarding option is available for only our Windows, Mac, and Android software. 

    To enable port forwarding in our PIA app, first please disconnect from the VPN. 

    For Windows, the VPN icon (right click for Windows) and select "Settings." After this, click the "Advanced" button and you'll see the port forwarding feature to the right-hand side. Enable it and select "Save."

    Once you have enabled port Forwarding, you can then connect to one of the servers that are capable of performing port forwarding. 
    Those servers are:

    - CA Toronto 
    - CA Montreal 
    - CA Vancouver 
    - Czech Republic
    - France
    - Germany Berlin
    - Germany Frankfurt
    - Israel 
    - Romania 
    - Spain 
    - Sweden
    - Switzerland 

    While connected to our new client  on one of these port forwarding gateways, please open the application. You will see the forwarded port just below the VPN IP address.

    While connected to one of these gateways within our legacy client, wait approximately 30-60 seconds, then hover over the PIA application's icon in your system tray; you'll get a small tool-tip window come up, which will include a port number. This randomly-assigned port is what you need to enter into your torrent client. If you are using port forwarding and trying to verify the forwarded port, as this is a remote open port on our server, it will not show open on your system. Locally, as it is a listening port configured in your torrent software, it will register as "closed" on a standard port scan by default. Listening ports are only open while data is actively moving through them.

    If you need more assistance, let us know! - PIA CS TEAM
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