For the uninitiated, self hosting your own VPN server may seem like a daunting task. And rightfully so, I suppose – the Linux command line is not for the feint of heart. But I assure you that after learning a few basic Linux commands and following this tutorial, you can easily host your own private VPN server in under a few minutes.
Over the last few years, cloud providers started incorporating “app marketplaces” into their services which allows users to install commonly used software with the click of a mouse. The install does all the boring configuration stuff for you, meaning you get more time to focus on doing what you want to do.
A quick look at DigitalOcean’s Marketplace will show half a dozen different preconfigured VPN packages you can choose from, but today I decided to highlight Konnect from Kuy.io because it is extremely easy to set up and incorporate the Wireguard protocol.
Installation
This is the best part – installation is as easy as clicking “Create Konnect VPN Access Server Droplet“. Your droplet will be created for you, all necessary packages installed, and Konnect configured. The last part just involves going to the IP of your droplet and following a few simple prompts. Now that your Konnect VPN server is officially running, let’s look at some features:
Admin Panel
While this may not be a necessity, it would be incredibly helpful for anyone who is sharing their VPN server with friends or family. It easily allows you to add new users and manage multiple devices per well. You can track usage per device and even set device specific settings. Even if you don’t intend to share the VPN server, sometimes having the option to configure things via GUI is a nice break from the command line!
Edit Device
On the edit device screen, you can set custom DNS servers (for ad blocking) or choose to use local DNS to enhance your privacy. Admittedly, this screen was the first time I had ever heard of Quantum Resistance Mode. As the screenshot shows, this is to protect your device from what is known as “harvest now, decrypt later”[1] and quantum attacks. More on this later!
QR Code
Perhaps my favorite feature is that each device has a configuration page where you can download config files to use with the Wireguard app, or you can simply scan the QR code from your mobile device. No more logging in via FTP to retrieve those config files!
Pricing
Konnect is completely free, but for one individual with three devices. From there, if you wanted to add more users and up to 10 devices, the Starter package will cost just $10/year. You won’t find a price that low anywhere.
So, what’s the catch? Well, there isn’t one – at least from what I can tell. I looked through the source code to look for any tracking pixels, and there were none. It’s unclear what, if any data is used for analytics purposes but the code is public on GitHub for anyone to go through. I looked at the Konnect privacy policy and it only seemed applicable to usage of their actual website, not the VPN software itself.