Easy way to setup vpn server/client?

Question

I have root access on a server and I can access my server through ssh and my server and my laptop run ubuntu. What's the easiest way to setup vpn server/client such that when I connect the vpn all of internet connections go through the server?

Answer 1

1. If you just want to tunnel HTTP traffic through the VPN, one of the easiest solutions would be:

   • Set up a Squid proxy on the server and configure it to accept only connections from localhost. See this article from Ubuntu community wiki.

   • On the client: tunnel the remote proxy port (by default 3128) to a local port through ssh:

     ssh -L 3128:localhost:3128 PROXYSERVERNAME

   • Configure your browser to use localhost:3128 as a proxy

2. If you want all of your traffic to go through the VPN, a solution would be to setup OpenVPN on the server side and the use the OpenVPN Network Manager Plugin on the client to setup a connection to the server. By default, OpenVPN configured through the NetworkManager tries to tunnel all traffic through the VPN. See another article from Ubuntu community wiki.

Answer 2

I found shadowproxy super easy to use http://shadowsocks.org/en/index.html They have clients for a variety of operating systems as well.