SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
According to Techradar, there are 8 reasons to replace your VPN client with OpenVPN.
Sign up for a new VPN and it makes sense to use your provider's clients. They should work right away, with no setup hassles, and you'll get easy access to any bonus features the service offers: encrypted DNS, ad blocking, split tunnelling, whatever they might be.
But what if your VPN doesn't have any bonus features, or its clients are so feeble and underpowered that they can't deliver the power you need?
OpenVPN could be the answer. It's an ultra-configurable open source VPN client which works with just about any VPN provider that supports the OpenVPN protocol. It gives you new ways to automate, optimize, control and troubleshoot your connections, and you can use it alongside your existing client, or maybe replace it entirely – it's your call.
The package won't be for everyone, but experienced VPN users in particular could have a lot to gain. We've listed eight good reasons you might want to give OpenVPN a try.
That is if you'e not just running over SSH or IPsec already.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday January 08 2018, @05:11AM (12 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @05:43AM (2 children)
In fact, I don't know anything that works on anything, first time every time.
Technology is soul-sucking junk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)
A hammer works on a thumb, reliably, every time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:09PM
You SAY that, but when I aim my hammer at my thumb, I almost always miss and hit some annoying nail that's sticking up in a nearby board.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday January 08 2018, @06:13AM (6 children)
I haven't seen any similar problems with CentOS, Gentoo, Debian derivative (on multiple RPi devices).
In my experience, OpenVPN just works (except in China, behind the Great Firewall).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @06:36AM (4 children)
Debian Derivative - which ones? I use OpenVPN in Debian Stable and Linux Mint and it is as broken as fuck, specifically has trouble updating routing tables with VPN route so everything goes in the clear (in Mint it may have just been the DNS queries). Have a script to fix it but is a PITA.
Note this is trying to use for anon VPN so not as designed, but that appears to be what TFA is taking about anyway.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday January 08 2018, @12:59PM (3 children)
I use it in Kubuntu, and it works quite nicely. Cow-orkers have run into problems with DNS stuff (since systemd), but on the last installs I did, everything was flawless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @06:44PM
Is it possible that the cow-orkers [urbandictionary.com] are doing it wrong? Is that just a Hindu thing, or does that extend to vegan/PETA types as well?
I've found OpenVPN to be pretty easy to set up and use. But I don't do a lot of orking [urbandictionary.com]. Perhaps that's the issue?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:53PM (1 child)
OpenVPN on Ubuntu with NordVPN is rock solid. Price was good at $3 a month. Had to add a couple of lines to the ovpn file to fix a dns issue. Some systemd issues which were just frustrating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:47AM
Original AC here - yes this was the same in Mint and I consider it to be broken. Grandma ain't going to be adding lines to no ovpn file.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:52AM
Let me speculate why...
When OpenVPN misbehaves and leaks a few packets they are nicely recorded by NSA and... nothing... for now.
When similar thing happens in China, the authorities disconnect the whole building or a village and report the offending IP to the population. It conveniently happens during a Cheese equivalent of Monday Night Football. Said population takes baseball bats and resolves the issue.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 08 2018, @06:44PM
Your link seems to be broken. I've also had similar problems since I upgraded to the latest Linux Mint; with 17.3 it worked great.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:46PM
nonsensical fud! i use it everyday on gnu/linux and it works perfect every #$%^ time. if you read that post it's easy to see it's filled with novice linux users who don't understand networking or openvpn. has jack shit to do with linux vs windows, except that everything is dumbed down for windows users.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @05:19AM
Or, not. Please send your username and password, and bank account number and pin to this address: www.soylentnews/hacked/TMB/tonnes_of _money_to_be_made/signup.htm Notice the .htm, obvious sign of a Windows user. Well, this certainly will clear out a bunch of those, after the Migornty Bassastard has had at them with his website for the not so, um, informed? Did you hear that it took (Ayn) Rand Paul months to recupperate from the Buzzard's last attack? Oh, the Hugho Manateee, or sea-cow, or Dungong, depending on where you are from.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 08 2018, @06:15AM
Can we ditch last year's begging, and upgrade to this year's all new begging? It would seem that much more justified.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @06:23AM
We replaced our Cisco VPN with OpenVPN and it's much faster and more reliable, highly recommended! (Clients working well on MacOSX)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ptman on Monday January 08 2018, @06:40AM
If possible, look into wireguard. Much simpler and therefore easier to audit than OpenVPN. Try it if it covers your needs.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @07:43AM
I've had good luck with Tinc. Does anyone know how they compare?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @08:41AM
Cisco: No.
Checkpoint: No.
Oh, and you could say that about anything... E.g. "Microsoft Access is interopeable with just about any software that supports the Access file format"
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday January 08 2018, @10:22AM
tincd - uses RSA keys, much easier to setup, and has a degree of "mesh". If you share a network, it doesn't need to route the server.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday January 08 2018, @11:19AM (2 children)
PIA uses openvpn.
Loves me my pia.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:17PM
Private Internet Access seems to have a good (and cheap!) VPN service in general, but PIA is a bit of a PITA if you want to use a specific port for a tunnel and don't want to use their custom client. IIRC, it had to do with needing a keep-alive sent every 10 minutes, even if you were using both the VPN in general and the port in specific constantly.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:36AM
Ditto.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kanisae on Monday January 08 2018, @02:58PM
I have implemented OpenConnect at work and at home. Its Cisco AnyConnect compatible and easy to setup with PAM integration or by certificates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @04:19PM
I use Eddie, which is actually the client of AirVPN. It's open source and uses openVPN (you can point it to a local installation).
Pretty good.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday January 08 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)
For some reason, OpenVPN for me (using a commercial VPN provider) has been seriously slow under Linux as well as implemented directly on my dd-wrt router. Running OpenVPN under Windows appears to get me about 158 Mbps of my 200 Mbps connection. Under Linux or on my dd-wrt router it's a fraction of that...sometimes as low as 22 Mbps.
From various things I've read I strongly suspect its the comp-lzo (LZO compression) that may be the culprit, though I have have no way to test that as I'm sure my provider requires that to be enabled. Other stuff I've read about tweaks sounds like a total dead end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:57PM
I would give my left tit for that level of throughput