So, usually I try to stay away from such controversial topics, but I have to address and elephant in the room. You all know, that originally I am from Russia and I have quite liberal world views.

Seeing that many people start to ride the hype and advertising some expensive "solutions", this is why today I decided to do a post about creating your own SOCK5 proxy server via a droplet on Digital Ocean:
- Post - https://spark-in.me/post/vds-socks5-proxy-server - note that unlike my other posts - this one is a step-by-step explanation;
- It explains how to create your own SOCK5 proxy-server using Ubuntu and Digital Ocean with dante;
- The cheapest digital ocean droplet is US$5 per month (you can find such droplets for as low as US$2-3 with inferior service);
- If you use my referral link - you will get US$10 for free - https://m.do.co/c/6f8e77dddc23
- Also you can create credentials for your friends and family;

Also note, that foreseeing this s**t - I created aliases for our telegram channel
- In twitter https://twitter.com/AlexanderVeysov
- In the web http://snakers41.spark-in.me
- RSS http://snakers41.spark-in.me/rss/

UX is not so great, but it works more or less. Please tell me what you think. I know that the majority of readers are Russians and we have quite a negative mentality, but this is one of the cases when you have to share this message and my post as much as possible. We will be doing an adapted post on habrhabr.ru as well.

And I know that there are free proxy lists. But if you create a simple service today - tomorrow you can add layers to it (see some hints in the article) and not rely on other people.

If you like what I shared - please support our channel (see a pinned message)
- https://buymeacoff.ee/8oneCIN

#internet
#digital_freedom

SOCK5 proxy configuration on Vultr

As of now, Vult was not (yet) blocked, probably because it is less known in the CIS. If you missed our Digital Ocean sock5 configuration guide, then you can follow this guide.

For us, both DO and Vulture work as of now.
- https://spark-in.me/post/vultr-sock5-proxy-server

You can use our referral links to create accounts
- https://m.do.co/c/6f8e77dddc23
- https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7402755

If you like the above guides, consider buying us a coffee
- https://www.buymeacoffee.com/8oneCIN

#linux
#digital_freedom

A small saga about OpenVPN

TLDR:
(0) Purchase a cheap VDS from a noname provider with decent bandwidth => install OpenVPN => forget about problems => share with friends and family;
(1) This guide just works https://goo.gl/K2xjby (do not be afraid of its length - it is just verbose);
(2) I tested it with DigitalOcean and hostus.us;

From a financial standpoint US$1-5 per month per 3-5 users without any 3rd party services seems to be a bargain.

Hosting options:
(0) With DO it just works (just follow the guide step by step). But the cheapest VDS (which is overkill for this) costs US$5 per month. If you use my link - https://m.do.co/c/6f8e77dddc23 - you will get US$10 for free;
(1) Tested it with hostus.us. Follow my link, if you would like to support us - https://my.hostus.us/aff.php?aff=2169. A decent VPS can be found in Amsterdam for as cheap as US$5-8 for 3 months. Be careful - their UX is a bit misleading at times - (!!!) the country choice does not seem to flow from one menu to another (!!!). This seems to be more than enough - https://goo.gl/GyPZ6u;
(2) If you want to search yourself - go here - http://lowendstock.com/ - the best 2 options seem to be VirMach and hostus, but the former is sold out;

Host.us caveats:
(0) If you would like to follow the DO guide but use hostus, then for the cheapest options do not forget to enable this in the admin https://goo.gl/DRx3UX;
(1) VPS provisioning time there is 0-8 hours. In my case it was ~40 mins;
(2) I also faced this bug -https://goo.gl/BTqeTX;

What if I have a problem with ssh keys on windows?
(0) This will give you some basic info about managing Linux servers https://goo.gl/TgL61G;
(1) Here we explain how to use Putty and ssh keys on Windows https://goo.gl/xxvGBb (also just google it);

Why OpenVPN:
(0) Seems to be the most well-known open-source VPN software with easy accessible clients for all major platforms;
(1) I know people who used it;

Alternatives:
(0) https://github.com/trailofbits/algo - seems to be newer and cooler, but I do not know living people who reported actually using it;

#linux
#digital_freedom