qBittorrentProtonVPN

NOTE: Make sure you have the ProtonVPN Paid tier, Free tier won't work.

Guide for setting up qBittorrent to use ProtonVPN using Docker:

In this guide we'll create two containers in one file, one for qBittorrent from the linuxserver.io
The other one is for gluetun (vpn client) which is what we'll use for the ProtonVPN connection.
Essentially, we're going to route qBittorrent traffic into the gluetun container.
Since ProtonVPN assigns a random port in each VPN connection, there's a command to automatically update qbittorrent port.

First you'll need to login to https://account.protonvpn.com

Then you'll need to take note of your OpenVPN Credentials in here:

Create the necessary folders:

mkdir -p "$HOME/Docker/qbittorrent-vpn"

Create a docker-compose.yml with:

In case you want to check the documentation about gluetun and protonvpn, check this

services:
  protonvpn:
    image: docker.io/qmcgaw/gluetun:latest
    container_name: protonvpn
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    devices:
      - /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
    env_file: .env
    environment:
      - TZ=${TZ}
      - VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=${VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER}
      - VPN_TYPE=${VPN_TYPE}
      - OPENVPN_USER=${OPENVPN_USER}
      - OPENVPN_PASSWORD=${OPENVPN_PASSWORD}
      - VPN_PORT_FORWARDING=${VPN_PORT_FORWARDING}
      - SERVER_COUNTRIES=${SERVER_COUNTRIES}
      - PORT_FORWARD_ONLY=on
      - VPN_PORT_FORWARDING_UP_COMMAND=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/wget -O- --retry-connrefused --post-data "json={\"listen_port\":{{PORTS}}}" http://127.0.0.1:${QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT}/api/v2/app/setPreferences 2>&1'
    volumes:
      - ./vpn:/gluetun
    ports:
      - ${QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT}:${QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT}
    restart: unless-stopped

  qbittorrent:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/qbittorrent:latest
    container_name: qbittorrent
    depends_on:
      - protonvpn
    env_file: .env
    environment:
      - PUID=${PUID}
      - PGID=${PGID}
      - TZ=${TZ}
      - WEBUI_PORT=${QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT}
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ${PATH_MEDIA}:/downloads
    network_mode: "service:protonvpn"
    restart: unless-stopped

Create a .env file with:

PUID=1000
PGID=1000
TZ=Etc/UTC

# qBittorrent Settings
QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT=49893
PATH_MEDIA=/path/where/qbittorrent/saves/downloads

# Gluetun Settings
VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=protonvpn
VPN_TYPE=openvpn
OPENVPN_USER=YOURUSER+pmp              # Use +pmp after your username
OPENVPN_PASSWORD=YOURPASSWORD
SERVER_COUNTRIES=Netherlands,Germany   # Preferred VPN server locations
VPN_PORT_FORWARDING=on                 # Enable port forwarding

# This command auto-replaces {{PORTS}} with the actual forwarded port
VPN_PORT_FORWARDING_UP_COMMAND=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/wget -O- --retry-connrefused --post-data "json={\"listen_port\":{{PORTS}}}" http://127.0.0.1:${QBITTORRENT_WEBUI_PORT}/api/v2/app/setPreferences 2>&1'

Download latest VueTorrent Theme (optional)

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/VueTorrent/VueTorrent/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[] | select(.name | endswith(".zip")) | .browser_download_url' | xargs -I{} sh -c 'curl -L -o /tmp/vuetorrent.zip {}
unzip -o /tmp/vuetorrent.zip -d $HOME/Docker/qbittorrent-vpn/config
rm /tmp/vuetorrent.zip'

• Don't forget to set the theme in qbittorrent web UI afterwards
• Options -> Web UI -> Use alternative Web UI -> /config/vuetorrent

Start the containers with:

docker-compose -f "$HOME/Docker/qbittorrent-vpn/docker-compose.yml" up -d

Or in case you have docker compose V2:

docker compose -f "$HOME/Docker/qbittorrent-vpn/docker-compose.yml" up -d

Get qbittorrent temporary password with:

docker logs -f --tail 2000 qbittorrent

Access the WebUI:

• Go to http://localhost:49893 and login with admin and the temporary password.
• Change the temporary password in qbittorrent -> go to Options -> Web UI -> Authentication
• Required for port-forward to work
  • Enable Bypass authentication for clients on localhost
  • In your terminal find the qbit container IP with docker exec qbittorrent hostname -i
  • Enable Bypass authentication for clients in whitelisted IP subnets
  • Put the qbit IP in the field, for example if your IP is 172.20.0.4 insert the following 172.20.0.0/24
  • Save
• Restart container or pc

Test the connection:

Open terminal in your docker container:

docker exec -it qbittorrent /bin/bash

Get information about the public IP the container is currently using:

curl -sS https://ipinfo.io/json

Recommended settings to use with ProtonVPN and pmp for QBittorrent:

• You can enable DHT if you want more peers
  

If you want to send magnet links directly to your container through terminal:

Download the magnet-qbit.sh script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Chillsmeit/qBittorrent-ProtonVPN-Guide/refs/heads/main/magnet-qbit.sh

chmod +x magnet-qbit.sh

You can then create an alias for the script for example:

alias qbit="/path/to/script.sh"

NOTE: The magnet link needs to be passed in quotes!
This pairs well with something like torge