I’ve got a Linux server running Xubuntu at the moment (It was a media player first), and it also runs two Minecraft servers for the family. It has two network cards that are both connected to the internet. Is there a way to bind the VPN to one of the cards and use the other one for regular use?

I’ve got Surfshark as my VPN, and it doesn’t allow port forwarding under Linux. I’ve got some software that I want to keep behind the VPN, but the lack of port forwarding is stopping me from sharing the Minecraft servers, and when the VPN is active, it slows down the connection to some of my services like Plex.

I’ve tried to look it up, but I just don’t know enough to get myself anywhere. I’ve found results that talk about name spaces and routing tables, but they assume a level of knowledge that I just haven’t got yet.

I want to use the Arr suite and qBittorrent as the main programs behind the VPN, and Plex, Mylar (a comic manager), Syncthing, and Minecraft as the main programs without it. If I set up qBittorrent and the Arrs as Docker containers, can I use Gluetun to bind just them to the VPN? The VPN is using OpenVPN connections if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance :)

  • lungdart@lemmy.ca
    0·
    16 days ago

    Yes that’s called routing.

    You don’t bind it to a NIC, you specify the destinations you want forwarded to each interface. Your VPN connection is just another interface.

    If you’re looking for good docs, you may want to Google split tunnel vpn, and also bone up on your networking.

    A few static routes should get you what you need

    • Orbituary@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      16 days ago

      Bro. Get a handle on the difference between “your” and “you’re.” Even if English is a second language, it’s worth knowing.

      Now everything makes sense.

      • Yuki@kutsuya.dev
        0·
        16 days ago

        I gotta agree on this. It’s so weird to read a piece when these 2 are mixed up

        • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          16 days ago

          I mean is there a material pronunciation difference between the two conjunctions? I don’t think so, but I can still somehow manage to work out what people mean when they say use “your” and “you’re” in the same spoken sentence.

          • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
            0·
            16 days ago

            There are differences in pronunciation, at least for my southern British dialect. “Your” is said “yorr”. “You’re” is said “yeur” and is far closer to the “you are” it comes from. It’s just said at speed blending the words.

    • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      Apologies for the slow reply :)

      These are the things that I don’t understand. When you say I need to specify the destinations, does that mean the destination of the traffic, like lemmy.dbzer0.com, or the destination network interface like tun0 or enp2s0?

      I’m searching for split tunnel VPN, but the majority of results are either sales sites, or Stack Overflow with no confirmed answers.

      I’ve been having a bit more luck with this page after searching for Jet’s answer below:

      https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man8/ip-netns.8.html

      but I’m still confused >.<

      • lungdart@lemmy.ca
        0·
        10 days ago

        Routing takes place on layer 3 (ip) so destinations are ip networks and hosts.

        Each packet you create has a destination IP. Your computer looks at your route table to see where it goes by matching the destination ip with each network. It will be sent to the most specific match first and your default gateway last.

        If you’re default gateway is you’re vpn server via your vpn interface then you just need to add more specific route for destinations of interest through a different gateway (you’re router) via the physical interface