Is there a way to use my nas to have qbittortent+my windscribe vpn to download torrents? I keep hearing about things like docker being able to do something along the lines of what I’m asking for, but even after watching some videos on what it can do, I don’t really understand how to use it or even how to get it onto my machine. Is it a package from the Synology store or something you sign up for?
Actually, unless it’s the only solution to my original, it doesn’t matter.
I just want to be able to offload the always-online duty of my pc (constantly running a virtual box of windows 10 and my windscribe vpn)downloading torrents, weekly episodes, etc. to my NAS instead, if possible. I regularly hear words like docker containers, or VMs and while I do have experience with virtualbox (the most user friendly gui-fied version of vm software, I assume) I don’t with any of the Synology vm apps, not to mention I hear even if I were to try, windows 10 apparently only runs decently on higher end nas systems, I have the ds920+ un-upgraded.
I’m sure there are guides out there for me, I guess I’m just having trouble understanding which method or thing I should look up, which one is most efficient for my specific purpose.
A kind Redditor gave me this link which was literally the only link you don’t need an advanced degree for.
Only had to look up 2 things. How to ssh into my Nas which is just using PowerShell and the instructions given and what the username and password are for my VPN. It is not the login name. your VPN gives a super long code for each.
You don’t need docker to use a vpn on your NAS… my NAS is too low end to support docker, and it’s still possible with the native synology OS. Once the VPN is up use download station with magnet links to torrent and you’re all set.
If you have a budget for this maybe consider a low-end seedbox. There are subreddits where you can find opentrackers to get into private trackers. I would think it would put way less strain on your disks and bandwidth.
I do exactly this, using a transmission docker image. The Docker container has access to the VPN network adaptor only, not the actual network adaptor so there is no possibility of leaking my ip address. Docker forwards the port the transmission web gui is on to another port outside the container, and I have a reverse proxy rule forwarding a subdomain onto that… So I can go to https://transmission.mydomain.com and get to the transmission gui (with a password) and paste in a magnet link and it downloads the torrent directly to my Plex library. Works brilliantly.
I used a guide I found somewhere on the net that was specifically for running transmission over a VPN in a docker container on Synology.
I use HMA vpn and download station in which I paste the magnet links for the torrents I want to download. The NAS does the download and ends it.
It’s an on-demand manual process, but I only grab specific movies manually anyway. Other stuff is via sonarr/sabnzbd and usenet is encrypted traffic anyway.
I do that now with my DS918+. The entire NAS is wrapped around a PIA VPN connection, and Sonarr/Radarr work natively pulling down both newsgroups and torrents.
The only downside is that because the entire NAS is on VPN, once in a while Sonarr and Radarr lose connectivity with trackers and indexers so I have to disconnect and reconnect to VPN.
I may look into setting up the virtual DSM and running VPN just on that, would make life a lot easier but make everything else more complicated to configure.
Qbittorrent (with SOCKS5 proxy from my VPN provider)
radarr
sonarr
prowlarr
and plex running natively with the auto update script to serve everything to my android tv.
Takes a bit to get it set up but once you do it couldn’t be easier. Go to the sonarr/radarr on your phone to add a movie/show and it will show up on your TV 20 minutes later.
u/jacksmith-futurama Wrote: Is there a way to use my nas to have qbittortent+my windscribe vpn to download torrents?
Perhaps I misunderstood your query, however, I have for the last 4 years utilized built-in tools of the Synology to accomplish Torrenting via a VPN.
Look into “Download Station” as the Torrent client. Then configure your network interface to utilize your Winscribe credential’s for the VPN interface. https://windscribe.com/guides/synology
Seriously, just get a seedbox for a few $ a month.
It’ll protect your IP (as your home IP won’t be exposed to the tracker).
You can leave torrents running all day long at no extra cost.
No need to worry about VPNs etc
Just to add I have qbitorrent running on a PC. I bought a Beryl travel router that has a hardware VPN kill switch. When Beryl boots it always connects to the VPN. If it can’t then no internet. For me it’s a super simple and portable solution.
I just bind my torrent app to a specific network port that is connected to the Beryl. No VPN on the PC itself. If I shut off the Beryl then torrents stop so I know it’s working. The Beryl is a WiFi access point so if I connect my phone to it and use NordVPN to check the IP it’s protected.
Point is for me an external hardware VPN is so easy.
But since using Radarr, Sonarr, Overseer and SabNZBD which connects over HTTPS I haven’t really used torrents in a while.
I used this guide. I had to fix a couple snags but if I remember correctly both were documented in the FAQ already. It’s so cool to be able to dump torrents in a folder and just let them go as long as they need through the VPN.
I also used this guide, and all worked well. However I cannot access the WebUI outside of my network. I have the synology’s firewall set to allow the port- and my router. But I suspect I have to allow the bridge network created to pass the traffic as well?
Figured it out, had to commit the ports on my switch All working well!
Another question I had, that might come up is to test to make sure it’s being routed through your VPN- you can use the magnet link provided by ipleak.net and compare with your normal public IP address.
This is a good response. Synology OS (DSM) can natively run your VPN.
If you are ok with all your NAS traffic going over the VPN, the above should work for you.
If you want ONLY your torrent traffic from the NAS to go over the VPN, I think the easiest solution is to spin up a virtual Synology OS (DSM) within your NAS, as a virtual machine. This will translate in you having 2 separate DSM domains (one contained within the other). Then you can just log into the virtual one, and configure the VPN in it, so that all traffic from that DSM goes out through the VPN. Once that is setup, you just use download station (or whatever torrent client you use) from that DSM. I have a DS920+ myself and have this setup running. Let me know if you have questions about how to configure it.
I do agree the DSM can connect to the VPN and manage it there. It’s good to keep your VPN network siloed from the rest of your NAS, allowing your DSM to perform all its regular tasks without using up VPN resources. And, assuming the VPN isn’t doing a split-network, can keep all your local connections local.
I used the docker-ransmission-openvpn docker image. It’s basically Transmission, configured in such a way that it only runs when the VPN tunnel is active. Supports most popular VPN’s.