streisand VS openvpn-install

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.

https://github.com/angristan/openvpn-install or if you want to be free from your distro's OpenSSL version: https://github.com/ix-ai/openvpn (recommended, just rebuild the container if it becomes outdated)

Buy your own cloud server and run https://github.com/angristan/openvpn-install to make it TCP over 443

Hey! I set up an OpenVPN Server on an Ubuntu Server VM inside ESXi 6.7 using this script: https://github.com/angristan/openvpn-install I need to access the local services running on the, e.g. 192.168.xxx.xxx, which works just fine. But I dont want all my network traffic being routed through the VPN Server. So if i reach out to 192.168.xxx.xxx I get the Service running on this IP in the local network where the server is in, but if I try to reach e.g. google.com the request does not get routed through the VPN. How can I achieve this? OpenVPN-Host: Ubuntu Server 22.04.3 LTS | OpenVPN 2.5.5 Connecting Client: EndeavourOS | OpenVPN 2.6.6

EDIT: I should add that the setup was done with angristan's OpenVPN installer. There's nothing particularly interesting about the conf files.

Very good, does it support https://github.com/angristan/openvpn-install ?

Pretty trivial actually. I set up my server on a VPS with https://github.com/angristan/openvpn-install, it generates the configs that I deployed to my devices, and when connected they can see each other. For resolving the domain name you'd need to set up the DNS during the wizard.