Can't Seed

[waregim]

Moe:
Hopefully not off topic, but.....

How does VPN play in this?

I am assuming VPN server sends encrypted flow through a single port to VPN client, through TAP/TUN where VPN software decodes and assigns data to ports, effectively bypassing local modem/routers. (Assuming software VPN rather than router hardware types). Is this correct?

Further assumption that all port forwarding is a VPN function with 'normal' P2P that uses it (VPN).

Here it seems that I can seed, but only to folks who were in the swarm while I was still downloading.

[Moe]

The simplest way to describe a VPN is to imagine you took a long ass cable to connect your personal computer to another computer somewhere else on the planet to network the two of them together.  Now, replace that cable with an encrypted network connection, and that is essentially what a VPN is.  A virtual network cable.

There are many different ways to use that connection apart from the particular way we use it.  We typically route all traffic for our computer through the VPN in order to hide our actual ISP assigned IP address.

The average VPN provider will host multiple users on a single VPN server, so they will all be using that server's IP address to connect to the world.  Because of that, the VPN server will be using NAT to masquerade all the clients.  Because of this, just like a router performing NAT, there is no way for a VPN client to accept incoming connections without port forwarding.  Some VPN providers do offer port forwarding as a feature.  If your VPN provider is one that does offer port forwarding, then you can have your provider forward a port through your VPN connection to your BT client. This is usually done using the providers proprietary VPN software, but can sometimes be done using their support web site. If your VPN provider doesn't offer port forwarding, then there is no way to accept incoming connections unless they assign you a dedicated IP address, which would generally cost more.

If you are running the VPN client directly on your personal computer, once your VPN provider forwards a port to you, you can use that port in your BT software and start accepting incoming connections.

If you are running the VPN client on your router, then you have to forward that port again to the target computer on the network.

[waregim]

In particular I use OpenVPN (I have never used my VPN host software), and shut off the Win VPN protocol services. Figure this might help throttle telemetry, as they can bypass Hosts. I am referring, of course to software, not hardware VPN.

Am I correct in assuming that the virtual VPN cable is a virtual Crossover cable?
In other words, router/modem settings are ignored due to encryption?

[Moe]

A VPN still uses UDP or TCP. Firewalls, routers, and the like still do their job. Your computer still uses the same path to the internet as it always did, just now it communicates exclusively with the VPN server and all the chatter between you and the VPN server is encrypted. Yes, you can consider it a virtual crossover cable, but that cable has to pass through your router and modem to make its way to the other end.

[waregim]

OK. Here goes:

I have xyz.com blocked at the Hosts file.
AND at the router filter.

With VPN it appears that xyz.com seems to come through, bypassing them.

Not 100% sure as web browser blocklists will be unaffected by VPN.

Does TAP/TUN bypass local DNS/Hosts?

[Moe]

To be clear, the hosts file doesn't "block" anything. It allows you to provide your own host/IP address mappings.

Unless you are using your router as your local DNS server, it doesn't know about your host name lookups. You can use a router's firewall to deny packets destined to an IP address which may or may not resolve from a host name lookup.

Name resolution is independent of the network connection. So, VPN or not, the local hosts file will be used. After that, if your VPN server pushes DNS servers as part of the configuration, those will be used over what your system would typically use. Because of the nature of the tunnel, connections through the VPN will bypass your router's firewall.

[waregim]

Speaking of DNS, is there a preferable DNS for TPB? I use OpenDNS as well as the default VPN one(third in line).

Does TPB have anything resembling a static numerical address? Couldnt we cut through the 'blocking' that way?

[Moe]

OpenDNS isn't bad. There is also Google's DNS and Cloudflare's DNS. Pretty much anything that isn't your ISP should be OK. You can also go so far as to run your own recursive resolver which will handle lookups from the root servers on down.

TPB uses Cloudflare, and Cloudflare will return different IP addresses based on region. They will also place multiple hosts on the same IP address, so direct access by IP isn't possible without also pushing the host name you are trying to reach.

But if blocking is an issue, using tor with the .onion address is the best solution.