Nordvpn causes some local services to malfunction from my Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS

I have started to use a PC in my house as a server to learn and expand more my knowledge in the IT field. Currently running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, at the moment being used for samba, minidlna, and local ssh.

I've been using Nordvpn in pretty much all the distros I have ever installed for almost 2 years, but I never had the need of using ssh or minidlna until now.

Basically if I have Nordvpn activated on my server I can still ssh into it using the local IP address however the connection is terribly slow, like A LOT.

I wanna say it takes anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds (it varies) to the server to execute a command after input. If I disconnect the VPN, everything works amazing.

As for minidlna, I could say the case is almost the same but with the difference of minidlna not working if vpn is active. (At least on my xbox, because I can still user samba with or without vpn)

Not sure if there is anything I could do to have both services working with my vpn, I have sshd settings modified since default settings is an open door for hackers.

Thanks in advance, if there is any information I could further provide do let me know.

6

1 Answer

You can bypass nordvpn by whitelisting whatever you need.

You can whitelist ports (e.g. default ssh port 22):

nordvpn whitelist add port 22

You can whitelist whole subnets (e.g. your local network)

nordvpn whitelist add subnet 192.168.0.0/16

To make minidlna work, you can whitelist the UPNP/SSDP broadcast address:

nordvpn whitelist add subnet 239.255.255.250/32

I don't know how much that impacts your privacy but I do know that it gets rid of the pesky error minissdp.c:313: error: sendto(udp_notify=9, 192.168.0.1): Operation not permitted.

This will allow your local devices to discover your minidlna server. To enable actual streaming, you'll also need to either whitelist your local network or the minidlna port (8200 by default).

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