Posted on Aug 21 VPN companies have advertisements everywhere, there’s a reason they sponsor most tech YouTubers (they’ve even tried it with me) but you don’t need to buy an expensive plan to use a VPN.Here’s how you can build your own:For ease of use, a Linux Server at your disposal would be ideal. On there, log in using SSH. If you don’t have one, services like AWS, Google Cloud, or DigitalOcean offer free tiers that you can use for this purpose.Replace “username” with the actual username you use to log into your server.Replace “server_ip” with the IP address of your server. If you are using a cloud service, look in the server dashboard.OpenVPN is going to be our free VPN solution and I will show you how it supports various encryption protocols. Let’s install it:Download Easy-RSA:Generate the server’s certificates and keys:During this process, when prompted, you will need to set a password and server username. Once signed, you should see this in the terminal:Now the server is setup, generate the Diffie-Hellman key exchange:Your terminal should look something like this:Now you need to generate an HMAC signature for a strengthened control channel:Create a server configuration file /etc/openvpn/server.conf and add the following lines:You can write files in the Linux Terminal by utilising Nano:Enter the configuration file lines:Then press CTRL + O, ENTER, then CTRL + X and the file will be saved.Uncomment the following line in /etc/sysctl.conf to enable IP forwarding:Activate the changes:Configure the firewall to allow VPN traffic:Generate client keys:During this process, you will again enter the username and use “user” as a placeholder. Then, once prompted, type the word ‘yes’ and enter the password we used earlier in Step 3 for the server’s certificates and keys setup.Lastly, create a client configuration file named client.ovpn in /etc/openvpn/ :Copy down the client certificates and keys to your local machine.Use OpenVPN on your local machine to connect to your VPN server:Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well Confirm For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse Ibrahima Dansoko - Aug 10 Abhishek Pathak - Aug 14 Revathi Joshi - Aug 13 Ahmed Radwan - Aug 13 Once suspended, Williambaptist will not be able to comment or publish posts until their suspension is removed. Once unsuspended, williambaptist will be able to comment and publish posts again. Once unpublished, all posts by williambaptist will become hidden and only accessible to themselves. If williambaptist is not suspended, they can still re-publish their posts from their dashboard. Note: Once unpublished, this post will become invisible to the public and only accessible to William Baptist. They can still re-publish the post if they are not suspended. Thanks for keeping DEV Community safe. Here is what you can do to flag williambaptist: williambaptist consistently posts content that violates DEV Community's code of conduct because it is harassing, offensive or spammy. Unflagging williambaptist will restore default visibility to their posts. DEV Community — A constructive and inclusive social network for software developers. With you every step of your journey. Built on Forem — the open source software that powers DEV and other inclusive communities.Made with love and Ruby on Rails. DEV Community © 2016 - 2023. We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.