Transcription
Are you tired of using free or paid VPN services that constantly lag, disconnect, show you a bunch of ads, or perhaps you're afraid that the service you're using might be blocked soon? And you absolutely need a VPN? Then you've come to the right video. Today I'll tell you how to set up your own VPN server.
Hello everyone, my name is still Vitaly, you're on the "Men's Thoughts" channel, and today we'll talk about creating your own service. Actually, there's nothing complicated about it. Don't be scared, it's no harder than buying a subscription to a music streaming service. You don't need any commands or specific knowledge. At most, you need to know how to use copy-paste in the operating system you use. All of this is done very simply, quickly, and most importantly, almost for free. Well, let's say, for the price of a cup of coffee a month, I think anyone can afford it.
But in return, you'll get rid of all the drawbacks of public VPN services: the abundance of ads, low speed, constant disconnections, and again, security. When you have your own server, all traffic goes through you, and no one can steal your passwords or logins for your profiles. Unfortunately, this problem exists. My colleagues have faced it, I've seen accounts being stolen from my colleagues on banned platforms. So, it's all pros, and it's absolutely simple.
But here, I need to make two important disclaimers. Disclaimer one: starting March 1, 2024, legislation in the Russian Federation is being tightened for propaganda or in the area of promoting VPN services for bypassing blocks. Therefore, it's important to say that this video is made exclusively for educational and entertainment purposes. I just want to show how VPNs can be used to solve completely peaceful tasks. Let's agree that we will not use VPNs to bypass websites that are banned in Russia, for all those banned platforms. We will use it exclusively for peaceful purposes.
For example, a banal one: here's a wonderful HP laptop in front of me, which was bought for money, but the manufacturer somehow decided that I'm not worthy of updating new drivers and software versions, and they blocked my access to updates from a Russian IP address. It's outrageous, I agree, but drivers need to be updated, Windows needs to be updated. That's what we need a VPN for. We are not promoting illegal use for bypassing blocks established by Roskomnadzor, but I must warn you so that you understand the full extent of your responsibility. If you happen to forget to turn off your VPN and go to a banned platform or some other site that you shouldn't visit, it will work. So, that's a warning.
And the second disclaimer: this video is created for ordinary users, not for system administrators, not for those who like to set up servers, not for those who consider themselves professionals or actually are. I think you already know all this perfectly well. I am an ordinary user, and for such ordinary users, I want to explain how to do it. So, friends, professionals, please don't be angry in the comments.
Let's go. Where to get a VPN service? Well, we'll talk about the software itself a bit later. For now, we need a virtual server. What requirements do we have? We need the simplest server for rent, located outside of Russia, with non-Russian IP addresses. And probably not Belarusian ones either. So, absolutely any country will do, including our closest neighbors: Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, the Baltics, European countries, America, South and North, it doesn't matter.
And if you're watching this video, you've probably already watched other videos on this topic, and you've seen that everyone recommends DigitalOcean. It's a well-known, I think, German service that offers virtual server rentals. I apologize, virtual servers. And after looking at the prices, you were horrified. Indeed, prices there now start around 20 euros per month for a rental somewhere in the Netherlands or Germany. A crazy price. But I assume that when these videos were made, there were probably some referral stories, and that's why everyone recommended this service.
I won't mention any specific providers again, to avoid any unpleasant situations related to legislation on my part. And honestly, I just can't guarantee that all of this will work perfectly. Yes, I have no affiliation with any of the services. But I can say this: you can very easily, by spending just 2-3 minutes of your life, use any search engine to find a virtual server for rent at a price from 150 to 300 rubles per month. That's a cup of coffee, guys, honestly, it's the best investment. My personal VPN, my virtual server, costs 250 rubles per month. I'll honestly tell you, it's the best investment of 250 rubles you can imagine.
In Moscow, a cup of cappuccino costs about the same. Once a month, you drink a cappuccino somewhere, well, it's worth it, believe me. So, when searching for a virtual server, what do we pay attention to? We need one CPU core, 1 gigabyte of memory, and usually, these plans offer 10 gigabytes of disk storage, sometimes 5. This is absolutely fine for us. This is usually the cheapest plan, the simplest server. But these are the system requirements on which the Ubuntu server will work well. We will use Ubuntu simply because it is the most common server today. It will be easier for us.
So, we choose as criteria: an IP address not in Russia, one CPU core, 1 GB of RAM, and 10, 5, 10, 15 GB of hard disk. Usually, SSDs are offered now, and this can be found on average, I repeat, at a price from 150 to 300 rubles per month. And with promo codes, which can also be found, it will cost even less.
So, after buying from any provider you like, a virtual server, you will be given two important parameters: the first is your server's IP address, and the second is the password for the root user. The root user is the most powerful user in Linux systems, it's the so-called superuser, a user without any restrictions on what they can do with the system. Essentially, we will work as root. We will need to execute literally one or two commands that can simply be copied and pasted, and everything will work.
So, friends, let's move to the computer and set everything up. I repeat, all this is done very simply: copy-paste. All links are in the description. So, we need to launch the terminal with administrator privileges. I will show it on the example of Windows 11, but there is a terminal on Mac, it's called Terminal, and on Linux, there is also a terminal. In general, nothing complicated. On Windows, we need to right-click on Start and select "Terminal (Admin)". So, here's the terminal in front of us, and we need to enter a command. We specify "root@" and here we paste the IP address that was given to us. I'll paste it now and we'll continue.
Paste the IP address, press Enter. Here it asks us to exchange encryption keys. We agree, type "Yes," and get a password prompt for your user. The only thing is, make sure to paste everything. At the end, there might be exclamation marks, some other special characters, they are also part of the password. So, it's quite a long password, as a rule. And I'll draw your attention to the fact that when you enter it manually or copy-paste it, the cursor doesn't move, as if nothing is happening, but in reality, you are entering the password. I will now enter my password off-camera. So, I've entered the password and got the prompt to the system.
As I said, our task now is to update the system. Firstly, it's good practice, and secondly, all the packages needed to install our VPN server will definitely be there. So, the command is very simple, double "&&," and we'll just copy it now. You can copy it from the channel and paste it, and the update process will begin. What does it do? It first looks for updates, and if it finds them, it installs them. It asks if we want to continue. We want to, so we press "Yes." The process has started. It's quite fast, so nothing more is required from us. We watch the numbers and letters run, and we rejoice at how cool we are. Well, actually, no, we're just doing basic setup, an ordinary user level.
So, let's talk while our server is updating about what we will use. I suggest using Outline. It's a server developed by a startup. It's an open-source program. As far as I know, Google is an investor in this project. Why Outline? I think if you've watched other videos or perhaps just heard about it, there's OpenVPN, there's WireGuard. Why don't I like them? Well, you still have to delve into configuration files and set up the configuration. Yes, there are tons of videos, tons of tutorials, but for an ordinary user, it's quite difficult. I don't want to bother, I want to press a button and have everything work. I think you want that too.
Well, essentially, we've done everything we could. So, what will we use? Outline. As far as I know, this protocol is slightly different from classic VPN. Honestly, I haven't delved deeply into it. I'm satisfied with the fact that it all works. And it seems to bypass all the restrictions that exist in Iran, in China, in general, it works reliably. In any case, it's important to understand that when we deploy our own VPN service on our own virtual server, it's not a mass service. And even if there's some blocking of mass services by IP addresses or by other means, we won't face such a problem.
So, what will we do now? We scroll down the main page. Here are two programs: Outline Manager and just Outline. Outline, the one on the right, is the application that will actually launch the VPN. It's a VPN client that exists on Windows, Mac, Linux, and all mobile platforms. I'll tell you about that a bit later. And we download it because we'll need it for use, for connecting to our Wi-Fi network, to our VPN network. And we need to download the Outline Manager, which is the program through which we will manage our server. So, on the server itself, we've actually almost done everything. So, we just need to install the VPN there, which is what we'll do.
Here's our manager downloaded. We launch it successfully. Installation is in progress. Again, I repeat, it's an open-source project, the source code is published, so you can be sure that no information passing through the server is being collected. Of course, some information circulates, but not your personal information, not your traffic. Well, DigitalOcean, here it's generally some automatic mode. We choose the option to install, "Advanced settings," "Install Outline anywhere." We click "Install," and look what we see. At the top, there's a command that will install it on the server. Here it says "sudo," which is calling an operation on behalf of the superuser. We don't necessarily need to copy it with it because we are working as superuser. But you can just copy it. Return to the terminal, paste, press Enter. It says that Docker is not installed on our server.
In a nutshell, what is Docker? Docker is software that allows you to run programs in containers. So, in this container, everything necessary for the program to work is contained, all connections, everything needed. Our server will be contained in Docker. So, we say "Yes," install Docker, and now Docker will be installed first, and then our server will be installed into it. So, essentially, we won't be doing anything else in the console. So, we wait for Docker to install, the server to install, and continue.
Well, look, both our server and Docker have been installed. You see the phrase highlighted in green text. We need to save this phrase. It contains the keys that will be used for access, for managing the server. We just copy it, and I recommend saving it somewhere in your bookmarks, just in case you need to reinstall Windows, your operating system on your computer, and you'll be installing the manager again, so you have access to manage your server. And so, here's the second part of the window where we paste this command. Press "Done," and we are essentially already on the server, on our server. Yes, in front of you is all the server management.
There are keys. I recommend issuing separate keys for each user who will use it. So, I have a key on each device where the VPN client is installed. It's just the right way, firstly, and secondly, there won't be conflicts because if you use one key and it's used simultaneously, then access errors will likely occur, and we don't want that. So, just put one key on your computer, another key on your phone, create a third key, give it to your wife, mistress, whoever you have, well, you'll figure it out yourself. Big guys.
How to create a key? You create a plus sign, write a name, and optionally, you don't write anything. So, you have a key. Share. Here you get a link with an access key, and essentially, using this link, by entering it into the client-side application, you get access to your server. Let's try it now. I'll show you how it works on Android. Believe me, it works the same way on iPhone. Let's move to the phone now.
And let's show you how to set up the server on the example of a phone. In my case, it's Android. You download Outline Client from Google Apps, Google Play. Launch it, and you'll see a table "Add Server." We tap to add a server, and into the window. The key was already in my clipboard, so the key that we added on the computer was immediately pulled up. "Add Server." The server appears. We tap the "Connect" button and see that in less than half a second, we are connected via VPN to our server. Exactly the same way, in a second, we disconnect. It's a very convenient thing, especially for those who have used free ones. Let's see the speeds. What are our speeds?
We'll run a test now. My VPN is off. My phone is connected via Wi-Fi to my provider. I have up to 100 megabits per second speed. So, we'll run a test now to see what it shows. Well, slightly less. In general, for a phone, my phone is currently connected via 2.4 GHz. I consider it an excellent indicator. It's over a hundred. Well, in general, excellent parameters. You've seen everything, everything is excellent. Close it. Switch to VPN. Here we are already connected, and let's run it again. Oh, why does everything want to ban me? Well, of course.
We see that the speeds are a bit lower, but in general, these speeds are enough for any tasks, including watching 4K. I can tell you that I've been using this VPN service, my own, for several months now. Under load, when several people are watching streams simultaneously, and someone is downloading streams, I've never had a problem with anything lagging. It always works well, perfectly, no problems.
So, friends, that's how everything is set up. It's all very simple, literally three commands and, I don't know, 5 minutes of your time for setup, and you have your own VPN server, through which only you, through which your traffic goes, which is unlikely anyone can steal, unlikely anyone can block you. Because, firstly, you're not using a mass IP address, and secondly, the technology itself is slightly different, a slightly modified VPN that other servers use. So, at least according to the developers' statements, everything should work well even if there are interference. In any case, I'm just enjoying it so far.
There is one big drawback to all of this: when the same banned platform works perfectly, so to speak, you get a little hooked on all these reels and other content consumption, which is not very good. I'm fighting excessive content consumption. I even have a video on the channel about this, watch it if you haven't seen it. But for work, for updating your computer, for updating software, getting access to sites that are not blocked by Roskomnadzor, but are blocked for us as citizens of Russia because we are not worthy of it, the service works more than well. And again, I repeat, for just the price of a cup of coffee a month.
In my opinion, it's not worth saving. All those to whom I told about this opportunity, my friends who now also use their own VPN, are all satisfied, and no one thinks of trying to save further by using something free. Thank you for watching. I hope everything was useful, interesting, and informative for you. Subscribe to the channel, give it a like, write comments. Be sure to check out the Telegram channel for all the commands. And I'll see you soon.