Hello everybody, first post here. I have been trying to turn an old machine of mine running Lubuntu into an OpenVPN server, but I have not had much luck. I just can’t seem to get it to work. I am a noob when it comes to networking and building a server of any kind, so I don’t really know what I am doing. So here are my questions:
Can I successfully use a VPN connected to the same router as the client computer? I could not find any info on if this is possible or not. Maybe the reason I can’t get it to work is what I am trying to do is fundamentally broken.
Does anyone know of a good OpenVPN Linux guide? All of the guides I have used where either really dated or incomplete. Also, I am trying to connect a Windows machine to a Linux VPN and I think that is causing me some hang ups and confusing me when it comes time to configure the client info.
Would I be better off just dropping the project and signing up to PIA or something?
If I understand what you are trying to do your thinking is broken. What you are doing would encrypt your traffic between those two computers but then the VPN server would still use your ISP to "go out to the internet" and do whatever browsing/internets you were doing. What happens when you use something like PIA is that it encrypts your traffic FROM your ISP so they cannot see what you are doing. They just see you connect to a random server run by PIA or whoever. Now you could use a server at home to encrypt your traffic for when you are at a coffee shop or something like that but there are a number of factors to consider like dynamic IP addresses and router configuration. Personally I run an OpenVPN server on a VPS that I pay for. That way I can encrypt my traffic from my ISP or just while I am out and about. But PIA does this arguably better and for the same or less money. I am sure I am leaving something out but that should answer the quesiton.
Thanks for clearing that up for me and telling me what I am doing wrong and that my system would never work how I wanted lol. PIA sounds good and I am going to go ahead and get it.
I should also say you are on the right track, good on you for getting a vpn... It is becoming more and more important these days, especially if you use any sort of public wifi network.
It started to get at me more and more just how much I did not like the idea of anybody being able to see my traffic and just how vulnerable I was. I am running PIA right now and I am pretty happy with it so far.
It slows down my network by more than half most of the time. However it is sometimes slowed down less depending on things like which server I am connected to or what time of day it is. I was expecting it to slow down my network coming into it, so I am not upset with it. I just turn it off when I want a big non private file to download faster. So far I have not run into a site that has not worked or banned me. I will post about it here if I do run into one.
Streaming has been fine for me. Logan said in the Tek Syndicate video about VPN's that you can get banned playing games online with a VPN. Since the VPN masks your IP address and changes servers all the time, it might look like you are cheating. So I would not do it.
god damn it. ...sigh almost a collisional waste money, it's good for watching videos and that's it AND it has to be done on every machine which won't work. dang. so it's pretty much good for my machine and few uses and not much else in that case. most i can do is set my browser's private mode to the VPN and maybe a torrent program and hope no one else.....
hhhhmmmmmm i wonder if i could do 2 networks that each machine could switch between, one not VPN and 1 VPN..... ...meh idk. privacy comes at an awfully big cost. i'd pay more if i could get a fast VPN with servers i can use for every thing with decent ping.