Do you know nothing in this world is ever
actually free? I know there are loads of apps, services,
or products that are marketed as free. However, when you look closely there's always
something else that you're paying with. And most of the time, that's going to be your
information. However, there are certain exceptions to free
services, and this is the exact reason I want to show you how to set up your own VPN service
with the Meshnet feature of NordVPN, as well as the Digital Ocean Droplet. But before we get to the very details and
steps and go through with the tutorial, I want to make sure that we’re on the same
page. First of all, what is a VPN? And before we get into all the fancy words
of encryption, tunneling, public, and private keys, it's really important to have a grasp
on the core concepts of a VPN. The acronym itself stands for Virtual Private
Network. But what it really does, is it creates a secure
connection between your device and the rest of the internet. But you might ask - How is that more secure? And there are two parts to it. The first part is increased privacy, which
is achieved by routing your entire traffic through an exit server, used by thousands
of other users at the same time. So it's hard for anybody to tell where the
traffic is coming from. The other part is encryption. And I know, I know, I said no fancy words,
however, it might be simpler than you think. You can think of encryption as a way to write
a letter to somebody, but instead of using actual words, you can use numbers associated
with the placement of specific letters inside the alphabet. For example, my name in that kind of encryption
would be 1-4-1-13. A similar thing happens inside a VPN. Anything routed through your VPN is encrypted,
making it hard for anybody to intercept or access your data. Fine, but what is the difference between a
commercial VPN and Meshnet? Meshnet allows for direct and secure connections
between devices, as if they were on the same physical network, allowing for file sharing,
remote desktop access, or multiplayer gaming between the users. Okay, now that we understand the main differences
between Meshnet and a Typical VPN, let's talk about DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean is a popular cloud hosting service
provider that allows you to easily deploy and manage virtual servers called Droplets. Think of a Droplet as a remote computer that
you can control and configure based on your needs. And with DigitalOcean, you have the flexibility
to choose the specifications of your Droplet, such as the operating system, CPU, memory,
and storage. It provides a cheap and reliable service that
we'll leverage to set up our own VPN service. But there are many other alternative VPS providers,
some of them, at the time of recording this video Oracle has an always-free tier that
you can go for. If you want to explore other options we’ve
got plenty of articles in our documentation covering other hosting providers. See the link to our documentation in the description
below the video. Keep in mind one thing. With a VPN provider such as NordVPN, you have
more privacy. As the traffic can not be traced back to you. However, with a DigitalOcean droplet, you
will still have to sign up with your name. And that means that the traffic can be eventually
traced back to you. So if for your specific use case, privacy
is a must, please consider looking into a paid VPN provider such as NordVPN. The first step is to create a DigitalOcean
account. DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider
that allows you to easily deploy and manage virtual servers, known as Droplets. Head over to digitalocean.com, sign up for
a new account, and log in. Once you're ready, we can move on to the next
step. You can go ahead and create either a new project
or use the default one created by the digital ocean. Within the project, you will be able to create
your droplet. The most important part of this is choosing
the region, as it will determine your exit location. So if you choose to go with Singapore, that
means that once we're done with the tutorial, your VPN will have Singaporean IP. The neat part is that you can set up your
VPN service pretty much anywhere in the world, even if other commercial VPNs don’t have
their servers in those locations. There are plenty of droplet types to choose
from ranging from a couple to a couple of hundred dollars a month. You can go ahead with whatever you feel like
for the time being as digital ocean provides us with two hundred dollars over two months
of trial period. Keep in mind some of these plans will have
slower transfer speeds as well. Go ahead and choose an authentication method. For this tutorial, we're going to be using
just a password. Make sure your root password is secure. I'm using NordPass to generate mine. You can also but do not have to add a more
fitting hostname than the default one. In a couple of minutes, we'll have an IPv4
address required to SSH into our virtual machine. Now that the IPv4 has been generated, you
can go ahead into your favorite terminal, open it up and type in as follow SSH root
copy and paste your IPv4 address and hit enter. The terminal is going to ask you to confirm
the fingerprint. Go ahead and type in yes and hit enter once
more. At this very point, we have our droplet running. We are connected via SSH to the virtual machine
and the next step would be downloading the install script of NordVPN Linux up. Go ahead and type that into your terminal,
hit enter, and let it do its magic. To turn on NordVPN on the droplet, we'll have
to login into our NordVPN account. And that can be easily done with the use of
a token. So go ahead and on your computer open up the
NordVPN site | log in to your Nord account | scroll down to the bottom of the page looking
for a button called View Details underneath the NordVPN Meshnet Free section | Within
that menu you will find a button called Set Up NordVPN Manually. | This is the section that will allow you
to generate your token. | You can either set it to never expire or
expire within 30 days. Make sure to store your token securely as
it won't be shown again once you close this page. I’m using the secure notes feature in NordPass
to store mine. With the token copied and stored securely,
head back to the droplet terminal where we got our SSH session running. Now use your terminal and the freshly generated
token to log into your Nord Account. With that, you'll be able to login to your
Nord account. An easy way to find out the name of your droplet
within the meshnet network, especially if you've got multiple devices connected is to
type in the following command NordVPN meshnet peer list. At the very top of the output, you will see
this device and the hostname of the current device you're connected via SSH to
Go ahead and grab another device, it can be either a mobile phone or your computer. Install the NordVPN app, log into the same
account, and make sure the Meshnet is on. Now all you have to do is click Route all
traffic underneath the droplet device within the Meshnet. Once the device is connected, you can go ahead
and check if our VPN is working. You can do that easily by looking at your
IP address and seeing where the location for that specific IP address is bound to. If you encounter any issues or need further
assistance, don't worry! Troubleshooting is part of the process, and
there are additional resources available to help you. Check the video description for helpful links
and troubleshooting tips. That's it! You've learned how to create your very own
VPN service using DigitalOcean as your hosting provider. With DigitalOcean's Droplets and the power
of NordVPN Meshnet, you can enjoy secure and private internet connection anytime and anywhere. Keep in mind that this particular solution
doesn’t give you the same privacy as a commercial VPN provider such as NordVPN would. While the connection is fully encrypted, most
cloud server providers can disclose your personal information to authorities if they are required
to do so by law. If you found this tutorial helpful, be sure
to like this video and subscribe to our channel for more tech tutorials. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the
next video!
