How To Create Your Own OpenVPN Server On Linode
Ara Scholze
Connect your computer to the public Internet through a dedicated OpenVPN server. By encrypting your traffic and routing it through an OpenVPN server that you control, you can protect yourself from network attacks when using public Wi-Fi.
You can optionally fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited user for your new Compute Instance. This is recommended for most deployments as an additional security measure. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permission when running commands with the sudo prefix.
OpenVPN is a widely trusted, free, and open-source VPN application that creates encrypted tunnels for secure data transfer. By hosting your own VPN with OpenVPN on Linode, you have total control over your security and privacy.
OpenVPN is a popular software package which creates encrypted tunnels for secure data transfer. In this guide, you will learn to configure your Linode as a VPN gateway using the OpenVPN Access Server software, and connect your Windows, macOS, or Linux computer to it.
To ensure that no IPv6 traffic is coming from the VPN server, run the test at -ipv6.com/. Your public IP address should again be that of your Linode VPN, and the results should show that no IPv6 address was detected.
VLAN's create isolated broadcast domains, unless openvpn interface has been tagged with the correct vlan tag, then traffic from openvpn will not be able to communicate with the machines on the vlan, even if they have the same subnet/range.
replace tun0 for the names of your openvpn tunnel interfaces if it is not tun0, it may be tap0 or similar. You will also need to run the command for any additional interfaces you want traffic to be forwarded on.
Using the extra info you provided with the subnets, instead of setting the default gateway on your pc, you can modify your openvpn config to push the routes to your pc. Add the following lines anywhere in your config file, I would recommend just below the line where you set the ip near the top of the file.
The option in linode "listen on all interfaces" controls what interfaces openvpn listens on for the inital connection. Once the vpn connection has been established, that option has 0 effect on the performance of the vpn.
I heard some VPN Service Providers (VSP) allow some form of port-forwarding on their service, so that you could try connecting to your OpenVPN server via their IP. Such a setup could work, but not sure about your current setup and if PIA has such a service. If all you care about is your ISP spying on you, you could use Linode to make your own VPN and avoid the hassle with using one account with a VSP. A VPS like Linode has some other nice features, but if you care about geo-restrictions, this is the only reason I would use a VSP.
Thank you for the suggestion. I heard about Streisand, but I had the impression that it was a set of scripts to install different types of VPN access to a server, so your remote clients are not restricted to only OpenVPN.
In conclusion:
When you create a packet destined for, say, 192.168.0.4 on the remote workstation, that machine will look in its routing table and see that the packet has to be sent to the machine with the IP address of 10.0.8.1, which is on the virtual interface created by OpenVPN. Internally, OpenVPN will send that packet through the tunnel to the VPN server, the packets travels up and down the network stack there and gets forwarded to 10.0.8.2. There, it is finally forwarded into the the target network.
I have a OpenVPN server that was deployed on Linode server. My computer's running the software that open port 8089 for client side connect. My computer do not have public ip, so the computer connect vpn to openvpn server for client connect with public ip address of vpn server.
Before getting this working, first ensure that your VPN client has a fixed VPN IP address. The OpenVPN Howto describes how to complete this. Ensure you pick an IP pair for the client/server from the table in that doc.
Install a reverse proxy on the Linode server, which will stand between connections from the outside world, and then forward onto your application. There are many available such as Nginx, Apache, HAProxy, TinyProxy. If you have simple requirements, TinyProxy is probably a good place to start. Once installed, ensure the following lines are in the config:
If you are also running a firewall on your VPN client machine, you will also need to ensure that there is a rule to allow the Linode server to connect to port 8089. You will need the VPN IP of your server. With fixed IP's, as per the Open VPN doc I referenced, you choose a pair of IP's for the VPN server and client to use:
You could also adjust the config so that your Linode server listens on an entirely different port (e.g. 80) by changing the 'Connect' parameter in the reverse proxy & updating the Linode server firewall rules to match, whilst your application remains on 8089.
Hey @LibertyMom!
SFTP or Secure FTP is an entirely different setup, which will require you to set up your device as an FTP server. Even if you do so, there is no assurance that you can see it when you have both devices on VPN. Additionally, an FTP account will engage a specific directory structure outside the folders you are looking to copy. A good example is the FTP server we set up on the LMS. It can see the public HTML area for the website, the email files, and the WordPress installation - but it cannot see what is stored within the Linux OS (and the home folder area).
As setup such as this would allow family members to readily connect to the server from whereever they happen to be and would also allow you to utilize your own at home hard drive (without needing to pay for a lot of expensive clould storage).
vpn router is just a way of selling product , you can use your router as vpn but I prefer to keep the server outside the premise where I run reverse proxy. if you run on the router, Either your router is acting as vpn server or some other location you may or may not be aware of.
I do actually have my nextcloud server attached to a vpn router. Is there a way to get to that securely from outside? Also, I was thinking that even if i setup my n/c server on linode and it would need to connect back to my home network to get to the hard drive (eg. maybe via portforward), at least I could limit that portforward to incoming traffic from a specified IP address
@sambo
I think there is no really security risk for option 2. You port forward 80/443 on your router to your webserver/nextcloud service. I think if all is up to date their is no really problem. You could possibly separate the webserver/Nextcloud from your LAN in a DMZ if you are afraid that someone will attack your webserver/Nextcloud.
A virtual private network (VPN) can secure your online browsing activity, which is beneficial in this modern era of always-connected devices. A VPN encrypts the network traffic to and from your device and funnels that information through an external server. It hides your unique home internet protocol (IP) address for increased privacy from outside threats. And pairing one of the best Chromebooks with a VPN protects you while online; not even your internet service provider (ISP) can keep tabs on you. VPNs can also bypass blocked websites or services, allowing you to watch content from other countries.
Hosting a VPN server can enhance your online security and privacy by putting you in control of your data. Since the web traffic is routed through your encrypted server, you won't worry about third-party companies logging your browsing activity. That means no unnecessary targeted ads or extra spam. This option may not be the best choice for everyone, but give it a shot if you don't trust most third-party VPN providers. In the sections below, we discuss the key benefits and drawbacks of hosting a VPN server while explaining how to set one up.
This guide demonstrates how to set up a remote Linode virtual private server (VPS) running OpenVPN, which costs $5 per month. While you can locally host your VPN server from home, you'll get better speeds with minimal downtime using a remotely-hosted VPS. You also won't worry about local hardware failures or device management, simplifying the setup process. And you don't need experience with the Linux operating system or servers. You even have the option to choose from multiple regions, which is helpful if you're outside the U.S. market.
You'll need to create a virtual private server (VPS) to get started with your own VPN server. The VPS can be thought of as the container that hosts your custom VPN server. You can choose from many VPS providers, but Linode is an excellent option for beginners since it's easy to navigate. DigitalOcean is another popular choice we highly recommend as a great alternative. However, we use Linode in our examples for this guide to keep things as simple as possible. To begin working with your first Linode VPS, follow the steps below.
Once the script is done, it exports a .ovpn file to the /root/ folder. This file contains your VPN's connection and login information, which you'll need to retrieve from the server manually. Keep these credentials safe and secure by not sharing them with anyone else.
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