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Comment by jason2323 | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain to me why they need port forwarding functionality through a VPN?

Torrents. As in you don't want your whole traffic to go through a VPN, but you may be in one of those places where a torrent client is a must.

You don't need port forwarded to use bittorrent. Clients connected to the network exchange information with each other. Magnet links or torrent files provide the information needed to get in touch with peers to make the initial connection.

If neither side has their ports open there is no way to make the initial connection.

Routing your whole traffic doesn't help. The IP on the other side isn't just used by you.

The problem is inbound connections. If both peers are behind NAT they can't connect.

I want a VPN for privacy.

And I run services through it that I want access to from outside my subnet.

Torrents need a port open and forwarded.

They do, but you will only be able to connect to peers that do have a public port open on their IP, unless you have one open yourself, then everyone can connect to you. But this latter option is now going away.

Which is not a lot because in most countries exposing your IP on the torrent leads to legal threats.

Actually you have no problem initiating the connection with port forwarding. Brief reading suggests it would work better/faster with it enabled as some peers may not be able to initiate with you.

Initiating no, but if your chosen peer is also behind NAT, you will not be able to connect to them.

For this reason, your selection of peers will be limited. As all other peers behind NAT without port forward will be disregarded.

If you do have a port forward, other peers can connect to you, thus having all peers available.

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