PrivateInternetAccess OpenVPN - Transmission

This Docker container lets you run Transmission with WebUI while connecting to PIA VPN for security. You can be up and running in no time, please read the instructions below.

Building and running the container

To build this container, clone the repository and cd into it. There are a few options on how to configure the container, let's look at the simplest one first. In order to connect to PIA VPN you need to put your username and password in the piaconfig/credentials.txt file.

Once this is done, you're ready to build and start your container.

Build it:

cd /repo/location/docker-transmission-openvpn
docker build -t="docker-transmission-openvpn" .

Run it:

docker run --privileged  -d -v /your/storage/path/:/data -p 9091:9091 docker-transmission-openvpn

This will build the image with default settings. What this means is that the VPN connects to PIA Netherlands with your credentials, starts Transmission WebUI with authentication disabled and Transmission will store your torrents to /your/storage/path/completed. Transmission assumes "completed, incomplete and watch" exists in /your/storage/path

But I want to provide my own Transmission settings!

OK, so you're advanced. If you want to change the Transmission settings from the defaults, create your own settings.json file or base it on the default config. Then make the container use it like this:

docker run --privileged  -d -v /your/storage/path/:/data -v /your/path/to/settings.json:/etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json -p 9091:9091 docker-transmission-openvpn

The container will now use your local settings.json file for its configuration. NB: do not change this file while container is running. Transmission persist its config on shutdown, and this will override your changes. Stop the container, do configurations, then start it again.

Access the WebUI

But what's going on? My http://my-host:9091 isn't responding? This is because the VPN is active, and since docker is running in a different ip range than your client the response to your request will be treated as "non-local" traffic and therefore be routed out through the VPN interface.

How to fix this

There are several ways to fix this. You can pipe and do fancy iptables or ip route configurations on the host and in the Docker image. But I found that the simplest solution is just to proxy my traffic. Start a Nginx container like this:

docker run -d -v /path/to/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx.conf:ro -p 8080:80 nginx

Where /path/to/nginx.conf has this content:

events {
  worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
  server {
    listen 80;
    location / {
      proxy_pass http://host.ip.address.here:9091;
    }
  }
}

Your Transmission WebUI should now be avaliable at "your.host.ip.addr:8080/transmission/web/". Change the port in the docker run command if 8080 is not suitable for you.

What if I want to run the container interactively.

If you want do have access inside the container while running, do like this.

docker run --privileged -v /mnt/disk1/Torrents/:/data -p 9091:9091 -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash docker-transmission-openvpn

This will start the container and give you a bash shell to work from. The container has screen installed, so you can use screen to start supervisord which starts openVPN and Transmission. Then you can detach from screen and continue to use bash inside the running container. If you're unfamiliar with screen, read up on it. The commands are as follows:

screen

Accept the terms, then run supervisord and detach.

/sbin/my_init
CTRL+A + d

You should now be detached and both services should be running.

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