Run your own VPN server in 10 min (step-by-step guide)

Okay, VPNs are fantastic. Most people should be using one. But for the more nomadic among us, it’s much more of a necessity—ranking just below a stable internet connection.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://nomadgate.com/10-min-vpn-server/
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Are you aware, that running a VPN on DigitalOcean has the disadvantages of:
- DO logging all traffic
- DO creating backups, so in case of a lawful search at DO offices, they have your ip connection logs, your server backup and your payment information
- DO doesn't allow torrenting
- If DO gets DCMA notices for your VPN IP for torrenting, sharing, downloading or accessing particular stuff, your server's offline in a minute
- They only have a few locations, compared to paid VPNs: New York, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Frankfurt and Torronto

Hi Jan, thanks for commenting! Yes, those are very good points, and I also point out in the end of the article that getting a regular paid VPN can be better if you don't want any logging, etc. You can also run Algo on any Ubuntu server, so there's nothing stopping you from choosing a more liberal VPS provider.

Cheers!

“Could not open requirements file: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'requirements.txt'”

What does that mean?

Hello, how do I uninstall Algo VPN to install a new instance of Algo?

just one thing, is digital ocean here to make a host for your server or what? if so, can i use port forwarding to host the server ?

When installing .mobileconfig on mac, certificate installer asks for .p12 password, where can i find that?
Another question, how can i get this service running on an android device?

Thanks for sharing! I used PureVPN before but I encounter so much trouble. I can’t access anymore to my internet, there are sites that blocked to this VPN and my computer runs so slow. So I consult someone on what’s happening with this. So they remove and installed another VPN.

@tkrunning
Thank you for such a detailed post, it was so easy to setup my VPN server with your guidelines.

I setup my VPN server on Digital Ocean with Algo

I have few things to ask:

  1. Is it possible I can take 2 or 3 different location servers, like USA & India. If yes could you please give me the detailed instructions. Also will it be easy to switch from one server to another?

  2. Is there any possibility to configure my Digital Ocean+Algo VPN server on my router so I can connect my Apple TV and can watch Netflix.

  3. I can see such a long VPN description when I configured it on iPhone. Is there any way I can personalised it.

I won’t mind if I have to drop Digital Ocean and also Algo to achieve the above points.

Thanks in advance.

hi thanks for the guide
I’m actually having some problems just at the beginning, step 3 is giving me this error

ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement PAM==0.4.2 (from -r requirements.txt (line 15)) (from versions: 0.1, 0.1.1, 0.1.2, 0.1.3, 0.1.4)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for PAM==0.4.2 (from -r requirements.txt (line 15))

I’m using ubuntu, if anybody can help i will appreciate it, it is driving me crazy

Hi, thanks for the guide! I got stuck trying to run ./algo, on macOS Catalina I get an error: /Users/…/algo/.env/bin/ansible-playbook: /Users/…/Non: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
Do you have any ideas how to solve it? Thanks

What do people think of NordVPN?

I run my own openvpn nodes, i recommend using pivpn its an awesome script that auto installs openvpn for you (recommended to run on debian vms)