streisand VS algo

https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

Streisand sets up a new server running your choice of WireGuard, OpenConnect, OpenSSH, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks, sslh, Stunnel, or a Tor bridge. It also generates custom instructions for all of these services. At the end of the run you are given an HTML file with instructions that can be shared with friends, family members, and fellow activists.

Unfortunately, that's to the Great Firewall of China, there has been a lot of resources put in to fingerprint VPNs and block them by state actors.

Fortunately, however, there is equally years of some of the smartest minds on the planet working to bypass Chinese censorship, so there are some great OpenVPN alternatives.

I really encourage you to look into something like Shadowsocks which Chinese people have found great success in using over the last several years.

It's quite sad that projects like Streisand[0] were archived, but I'm sure there are other alternatives that might make it just as easy to roll onto a server.

[0] https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

The Streisand Project[0] provided easy installation of well-configured certs, VPNs and various other software on cloud instances. It was great for travelling internationally: run the script and after a few minutes one had a cloud instance and everything one needed to securely access the Internet through one’s own country.

Unfortunately, it was archived in 2021. Is there anything in 2023 which approaches it? I’ve seen Algo[1], but I don’t believe it does as much to help one to avoid packet filtering. It’s also based on Ubuntu rather than Debian, which seems like a mistake with security-conscious server software.

0: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

1: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

It basically works like any normal VPN. Setting it up is quite easy, you just need a VPS and setup Streisand by following their guide.

You are better off renting a cloud server and rolling your own, e.g. using Streisand, Algo or my own Edgewalker

I currently use https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand which was extremely simple to set up.

What are the main advantages over Streisand?

For a VPN, I use Streisand (https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand) running on a box in a datacenter in Iceland. I also occasionally use other VPNs. I turn off the VPN on my gaming PC when playing specific games.

Since we're already presuming you have a functional PFSense box with Wireguard installed and a VPS stood up, now you need to get Algo installed on the VPS. I'm not going to write this part out in detail, but basically you need to follow the procedures here to get Algo installed. However, *before* running ./algo you probably want to edit some of the config.cfg settings. I disabled IPSec (which saves a bunch of package installs and prevents a bunch of failures I saw on some of my VPSs), set my reduce_mtu setting to 80 just to prevent any MTU issues down the line, turned off DNS encryption, and renamed my users to the servers in question (for example: pfsense, vps_server, etc)

Check out the command line args for Auto1111, it talks about a gradio setup that can be accessed remotely. There's a time limit on gradio links though, I think. You could also set up a vpn that will allow you to access your PC remotely, then run A1111 with the --listen command and access it that way. I've done this with an Algo VPN on Azure and a Wireguard client for Windows for Android, but any VPN that lets you access your PC remotely would work.

One way you could try to get around is building your own VPN service, like this: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/README.md

Things I have tried so far: Clear network cache and reset adapters - IDK it fix aprevious problem I had https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/discussions/14504

(I can simply install Algo and get the Wireguard tunnel working, easy peasy... But from there, I can never get Plex port 32400 open... so I'm just trying from scratch now...)

Maybe try running algo vpn (following the road-warrior setup) in a VM instead? It has very light requirements. https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/docs/deploy-to-ubuntu.md