Setup private VPN network or VPN service provider – complete guide

I originally published this guide on it’s own website called “American Netflix Guide” to show you how to get the American version of Netflix, but all the steps can also be used to setup your own private VPN network, or even a VPN service provider.

If you see anything named “*netflix*” you can replace it if you know what you’re doing, otherwise just leave it until you’re more comfortable with setting up VPN servers (hostnames and TAP adapters especially). I suggest you set aside 2 hours for this tutorial and make sure you have a credit card handy for the cloud server you’ll need to purchase ($5 per month).

Introduction

Overview

We will be setting up a Debian Linux x64 cloud server and installing the excellent SoftEther VPN Server for VPN client access. We will also install dnsmasq for DHCP IP address allocation and finish the server by setting up basic IP Table firewall rules for security. Then we will install the SoftEther Server Admin software on your Windows PC to setup SoftEther Server and create user(s), then we move on to connecting your client PC to the VPN.

Protocols

You will have a choice of 4 different VPN protocols; L2TP/IPSec, SoftEther SSL-VPN, OpenVPN and SSTP with the first two protocols working out-of-the-box, whereas the second two protocols will need some extra configuration (optional). I recommend L2TP/IPSec for Windows and MAC as they both have in-built clients for that protocol. For Linux I recommend SoftEther-SSL-VPN or OpenVPN.

Guide Format

The guide consists of text and images because as some people learn better visually, while others learn better with textual information. Each step is carefully written to make this guide accessible to everyone no matter what your skill level, therefore those of you with more experience can potentially skip over certain parts.

PuTTY Tips

Some very important tips before we get started. If you’re not familiar with the PuTTY SSH Client, it works a little differently in some regards, like when you highlight text inside it, it automatically copies it to your clipboard, you don’t need to right-click and copy as it’s already done.

Another aspect with PuTTY is when you want to paste text, all you need to do is move the cursor to the position you want (using the Arrow keys), then simply click your right mouse button once and it will paste the clipboard.

Preparation

Folders & Passwords

There are a few things we need to setup first to make this guide easier to use, the first is we need to create a project folder on your PC. Navigate to your Documents folder, then right-click inside it, choose New > Folder and name it VPNGuide and enter the new folder.

Right-click inside the folder, choose New > Text Document, name it info.txt, then click your mouse on the white space to save the file.

Now double-click on info.txt to open, then copy and paste the following text into it:

Visit RANDOM.org password generator, change password number to 5, then click the Get Passwords button which will generate 5 random passwords. Copy to clipboard the first password, then paste into the Cloud provider pass: field replacing [password], then repeat using the next generated password for each field that has [password].

Now we need to enter an email address for the Cloud provider email: field which can be your normal email address. For the SoftEther VPN client name: field type a username (usually your name ie. John).

Download & Install PuTTY SSH Client

Now we need to download probably the most widely used Windows utility ever, the PuTTY SSH Client. Click the following link to download the PuTTY SSH Client (choose 32bit if you’re unsure) and install as you would any other Windows application choosing Yes to “Create a desktop icon” option.

Download & Install SoftEther Server Manager

Now we want to download and install the SoftEther Server Manager for Windows (see screenshot below) and install as you would for any other application, leave everything at defaults.

That finishes up our preparation so you can now move onto the next section Choose a Cloud Server Provider & Initial Server Setup.