How to Open a Port With a VPN

While it’s great that your VPN connection is secure and private, it doesn’t do much for you if you don’t have access to the websites and apps you want to use. If you have a choice of VPN providers, it’s important to find one that opens the ports you need so you can use that connection safely. In this article, we’ll discuss how to open a port on your home router with a VPN so you can access the websites and apps that you want without worrying about security threats.

Step One: Assess Your Security

Before you start opening up ports with a VPN, it’s important to assess your security needs. You don’t want to open up a whole bunch of ports on your home router if you don’t need to, so take a look at what you use and how you use it. For example, is your iPhone the only device on your WiFi? If so, does everyone need access to your iPhone’s personal details? Does everyone need access to your WiFi, or is it just for you? You can find the answers to these questions by taking a look at your security settings. If you’re not sure where to start, a great place to look would be your router’s security settings, which you can find by going to your router’s firmware update page and searching for “security” in the list of available topics. From there, you can figure out the best settings for your needs.

Step Two: Set Up Your VPN

Now that you have a good idea of your security settings, it’s time to set up your VPN. First, you’ll need to determine which VPN protocol is best suited for your needs. There are two primary protocols that VPNs support: PPTP and L2TP. You can read more about them here and here. For most people, PPTP is the preferred option as it’s quite secure and also very simple to set up and use. If you decide on this protocol, you’ll need to get a dedicated IP address from your VPN provider. This will help ensure that your VPN connection is always identified as coming from your home and not a public IP address that could be traced back to you.

Step Three: Open The Port

Once you have your VPN set up, it’s time to open up the port. First, you’ll need to log into your router’s dashboard and click on the Wi-Fi icon to bring up the options. From there, you’ll see a list of your routers’ internal interfaces. Scroll down until you find the one that represents your VPN and double-click to open it. When the port is open, you can use your VPN to access the websites and apps that you want through the firewall.

Bonus Tip

If you want to ensure that your VPN connection always has the same IP address, you can connect a device to your WiFi network and set its MAC address as the one associated with your VPN. This way, all traffic from that device will be identified as coming from your VPN and not a public IP address. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, you can even set up a new WiFi network on your router and connect your VPN to it. In this case, all devices will be forced to connect to this network, and since your VPN is the only one connected to it, it will be the only one that will be able to access the internet. You can find more information here and here.

It’s great that your VPN connection is very secure, but without access to the websites and apps you want to use, it’s not doing much for you. Unless you have a choice of VPN providers, it’s important to find one that opens the ports you need so you can use that connection safely. In this article, we discussed how to open a port on your home router with a VPN so you can access the websites and apps that you want without worrying about security threats.