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Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

jeffgeerling.com

121–130 of 235 posts

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#122

I run wg-easy https://github.com/WeeJeWel/wg-easy for this sort of thing. I use the docker container, and it's great. "Just works". Also, unrelated, I just decided I don't like the sentiment of "PiMyProjectName" branding. I know most projects don't just run on a Pi, and that the intent is to say "you can self-host thing", but at this point if you want to run a home server sort of thing, just buy some cheap 100-200 do…

> I'm pretty dismissive of ARM chips for homelab stuff at this point What about Mac Mini? The latest version runs on M2

The Mac Mini is pretty tempting, but I wanted something even lower-power. 15W is possible for Celeron mini pcs. They are around. I ended up getting a Quieter3Q which is a Celeron-based 15W, fanless and cheaper than a Mac Mini.

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#123

I run wg-easy https://github.com/WeeJeWel/wg-easy for this sort of thing. I use the docker container, and it's great. "Just works". Also, unrelated, I just decided I don't like the sentiment of "PiMyProjectName" branding. I know most projects don't just run on a Pi, and that the intent is to say "you can self-host thing", but at this point if you want to run a home server sort of thing, just buy some cheap 100-200 do…

> it doesn't run on an sd card that is going to fail within a year

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 has variants with eMMC, which is better than using an SD-card.

Additionally, there are adapters to use NVMe drives and you can boot from them. I’ve done so with a few RPi CM4, to varying degrees of luck. One of them works perfectly, another one did not. Currently waiting for more of the same adapter I used for the first one and hopefully this will allow the additional ones to work as well as the first one is doing.

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#124
post #4

Before going to a long 3 month trip to Asia last year, I installed WireGuard on my Raspberry Pi 1 (original model B from 2012) which was running at home in US. I found PiVPN to be the easiest way to install Wireguard. I didn't know if I even needed a VPN but I was glad, and I was able to use internet as if I were at home. It was weird, but a lot of sites are blocked oversea, even though it shouldn't. For example, I c…

> Apparently a lot of US business sites refuse to connect from oversea IP because (...) they just don't want to deal with it I am French. What I find fascinating is that there are local US newspapers (that server a tiny community) that went through the effort to do a geoblock from the EU and put a page along the lines "we cannot be compliant to Privacy laws in the EU so we must block you". Why do they care at all? Ho…

It's just a lot simpler to block than having to keep up with laws in other countries for businesses who don't even do business in those countries. It's not like it's hard or time consuming to implement, and cheaper than your other suggestion further down of consulting a lawyer every time one of these pops up, like "do I have to annoy my customers with these stupid cookie popups every time they visit?" Why should I have to spend a dime for something that is external to my company, has nothing to do with it, and have to constantly keep on top of it? We don't even sell our services there. Why should I even waste the bandwidth? Our firewalls are sure a lot less active, as well. Why should I waste time answering emails from people we don't sell to? It's better to just not get them. I guess my question to you is why do YOU care if they're accessible or not? If a (local) business really just wants to sell within their own (local) country (or even smaller municipality such as state/county/city), is there something wrong with blocking everything outside it out and just not worrying about it?

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#125
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apparently a lot of US business sites refuse to connect from oversea IP because (...) they just don't want to deal with it I am French. What I find fascinating is that there are local US newspapers (that server a tiny community) that went through the effort to do a geoblock from the EU and put a page along the lines "we cannot be compliant to Privacy laws in the EU so we must block you". Why do they care at all? Ho…

It's just a lot simpler to block than having to keep up with laws in other countries for businesses who don't even do business in those countries. It's not like it's hard or time consuming to implement, and cheaper than your other suggestion further down of consulting a lawyer every time one of these pops up, like "do I have to annoy my customers with these stupid cookie popups every time they visit?" Why should I ha…

> It's just a lot simpler to block than having to keep up with laws in other countries for businesses who don't even do business in those countries.

Exactly, except that it is just simpler to do nothing.

Do you (I assume you are not in either of the countries I give an examples, nor travel there) worry about laws in, say, China when you state "Taiwan is an independent country", or Russia when you say "Russia invaded Ukraine", or North Korea when you say "NK is a tyranny", or France when you say "Retirement should be at 60 and not 64". No. Because the local laws that forbid these statements are, well, local. Nobody cares outside of these countries. They could send you letters informing that you did wrong and that you have to pay 1M USD and you would just put that to trash.

> I guess my question to you is why do YOU care if they're accessible or not? If a (local) business really just wants to sell within their own (local) country (or even smaller municipality such as state/county/city), is there something wrong with blocking everything outside it out and just not worrying about it?

I do not care - it is just that I ended serendipitously on a few of these places and was wondering why they care (I would not care about the cookie law in Zimbabwe or Patagonia if I had a web site).

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#126
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pis shine primarily in terms of power consumption, under load, a mini PC could cosume 50W, where a Pi (and other ARM boards) will do an absolute maximum of 15W. And if you have multiple devices that run 24/7, that could be a significant saving

Just have to pay attention and be picky while shopping for the mini pc. Yes most of them are way over 15W but you can find them under 15W. My Quieter3Q for instance is fanless & runs on a Celeron in just 15W. I love it, but one annoyance is, it does not come back on by itself after a power interruption.

> it does not come back on by itself after a power interruption.

Most BIOSes have an option for that. Did you check?

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#127
post #4

Before going to a long 3 month trip to Asia last year, I installed WireGuard on my Raspberry Pi 1 (original model B from 2012) which was running at home in US. I found PiVPN to be the easiest way to install Wireguard. I didn't know if I even needed a VPN but I was glad, and I was able to use internet as if I were at home. It was weird, but a lot of sites are blocked oversea, even though it shouldn't. For example, I c…

I have a US-and-Canada based business and I ban customers from elsewhere in my T’s and C’s. Simply because I don’t know their laws. I don’t outright block them because I myself travel, and some foreign laws apply to their citizens wherever they are. I can completely see why you might want to ban overseas IP connections though, and I’ll probably do it soon.

Banning new signups/sales from overseas IPs can make sense for legal, tax, and shipping reasons – but please do provide some way for existing customers to access their subscriptions/orders/accounts from abroad. International travel is a thing.

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#128

At the price Raspberry Pis are being sold (scalped) for it's discouraging and disappointing to see content creators continually going to that well. You can buy a travel router like the GL.iNet GL-SFT1200 (Opal) for $39.99. All of Gl.iNet's devices run OpenWRT already. Setting up Wireguard on OpenWRT is easy, and using Tailscale is even easier! Edit: Jeff's been creating awesome Raspberry Pi content for a long time an…

Any concerns over routers made in China?

It’s true that a lot of chips are made in China. Nevertheless, the question remains.

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is WireGuard easier to block than SOCKS?

that's "shadowsocks" wireguard is fingerprintable. it's trivial to look at packets and see "this is wireguard". and block the packets Outline traffic looks much more like noise (pre-shared keys, lack of handshake, …)

Shadowsocks is defunct now. Has been for a while; a connected server's IP can be detected and blocked within hours. That means Outline's defunct in a lot of places too. What's currently 'hot', in large part, is v2ray [1], be that vless, vmess, trojan, etc.

[1] https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2Ray

Re: Build your own private WireGuard VPN with PiVPN

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

between the options of: A. [re-]architect in in GDPR compliance; B. deal with incoming legal documents, likely can't just discard; C. block country representing tiny share of viewership, option C seems to present the least hassle

Option D: ask a local lawyer once (100 USD or so) and they will confirm that the business can trash such foreign requests and be done. Not sure whether C or D would be more complicated long term (you need to manage the geoloc somehow, or outsource and pay for the service)

Additionally, it shows traveling US-based customers that you care about them.
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