Now running my own VPN and PiHole

During my “nerdy-hour on Sunday” I installed OpenVPN on my home-server :)

Installation was a breeze (using this guide), with the following caveats:

• the IP-address you use in step 1 if you’re behind a NAT-router is NOT your external IP, but rather the IP of the server you’re installing VPN on
• the installation script has some oddities: it sometimes writes a number instead of a value (the script for instance asks: “Which protocol do you want to use: 1. UDP, 2. TCP” and instead of writing proto=udp it writes proto=1). So double check your server.conf and client.conf)

Even easier was installing PiHole for capturing all ads- and tracking-code (using this guide). I’ve left most settings as-is, but I also block facebook.com to stop ads from appearing in my PodCasting app (added bonus is less procrastination).

So that’s it! No more ads on my devices, safe internet on public WiFi and always the Dutch selection of Netflix.

By the way, running Bungie on Ubuntu right now and that’s a very pleasurable experience. Recommended!