Dedicated IPs
As of December 15th, you can now purchase a dedicated IP from Private Internet Access. This will be assigned, exclusively to each user and will not be provided to any other users or be accessible to the staff (for the sake of security and anonymity). Dedicated IPs can be purchased through the Client Control Panel (for active accounts) or via the purchase page (in the form of a combined subscription).
Dedicated IPs are currently only available for users who have purchased an account through our join now page (they are currently not available on iOS or Android subscriptions due to the way billing on those platforms works).
You can read more about dedicated IPs in the feature announcement, published here. We have, additionally, created a guide that will guide you through the purchase and use of dedicated IPs.
If you want to always connect the VPN using the same IP address, instead of using our gateways directly, which will normally rotate through our gateways IP addresses giving your connection the best IP address with less ping time. If you do not wish to purchase a dedicated IP, first you would require the use of the OpenVPN application instead of the PIA app.
Windows:
For instructions on installing OpenVPN please review the guide for Windows Here.
- Right-click the icon for OpenVPN and choose the server you want to connect to.
- Click Edit config; this will open the config file for the server.
- Replace the hostname (ex. us-california.privateinternetaccess.com) with the IP address for the server.
a. Open a Command Prompt window.
b. Type 'ping hostname' and press Enter.
For example: ping us-california.privateinternetaccess.com - Save the changes.
Mac:
For instructions on installing OpenVPN please review the guide for macOS using Tunnelblick.
Do the following and enter Mac passwords where requested:
- Choose "VPN Details" from the Tunnelblick menu.
- In the window that appears, click on the "Configurations" button at the top of the window.
- Click to select the configuration file in the list along the left-hand side of the window that you want to edit.
- Click on the "gear" icon that is below the list of configurations.
- Click to select "Edit OpenVPN Configuration File...". If "Edit OpenVPN Configuration File..." is not available but "Examine OpenVPN Configuration File..." is, choose “Make Configuration Private", click the gear icon again, and choose the new "Edit OpenVPN Configuration File…" option.
- You should then see the file open in a TextEdit window. Replace the hostname (ex. us-california.privateinternetaccess.com) with the IP address.
a. Open a Terminal window.
b. Type 'ping hostname' and press Enter.
For example: ping us-california.privateinternetaccess.com - Then, choose File >Save to save the change, and Quit TextEdit.
Now every time you connect to that server, it will connect to only the IP address you have specified.
At this time we don't have explicit instructions for Linux, due to the various ways you can connect on this platform. However, you can find the ‘.ovpn’ or NetworkManager configuration file to update and replace the hostname in that configuration file with an IP address you can look up using the dig <hostname> command.
If you have any troubles with these steps, please contact our support here.