What is OpenVPN?

OpenVPN is Company that created the OpenVPN Community Edition VPN server which is open-source and free to use. They also developed the OpenVPN tunneling protocol which is a tunneling protocol based on SSL encryption protocol. Many VPN services use this protocol. There is something else which is called OpenVPN Access server which is an enterprise product that has a web Interface and only offers 2 simultaneous connections on the free version.

A VPN is a tool that acts as a middleman between you and the Internet that you browse. Whatever you do online, the VPN acts as a connecting bridge between your computer and the Internet. To the services that you are using, for example – visiting a website), to them, it appears as if your VPN is the client, but in reality, the VPN relays the information back to your computer, and in turn, hides your identity (IP address). A good VPN encrypts your connection, so whatever data goes between your computer and the VPN server is encrypted, and your ISP cannot read your internet traffic. There are a lot of VPN services that you can subscribe to, but using them means trusting them with your browsing data. So, what is the alternative? Well, you can go on to create your own VPN server, and doing so is not that tricky at all. You would require the following to create your own VPN server:

• A Linux virtual machine with at least 1GB RAM and 1vCPU.
• A VPN software like OpenVPN.

There is a lot of VPN software that let you host a VPN server on a Linux virtual machine, in this article, we will be focusing on one of them, which is OpenVPN.