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Comment by olalonde | Hacker News Reader

Shameless plug: I've just spent the last few days figuring out how to correctly configure OpenVPN and pptpd on my Ubuntu servers + Android & OS X clients (it's a real pain in the ass). I'd be happy to install and configure those on your own server(s) for 5 BTC per install (I'm kind of short on money right now :().

If you want to give it a try by yourself, I recommend the following articles (doesn't seem that complicated but trust me, you can be stuck on a bug for hours!): http://library.linode.com/networking/openvpn/ubuntu-10.10-ma... http://blog.riobard.com/2011/11/12/pptp-vpn-on-ubuntu. I can help with minor problems on Skype as well (o-lalonde).

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It should be noted that PPTP does have some serious vulnerabilities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protoc...) and should probably be avoided if security is your primary concern.

True but it's much easier to set up on server side as well as client side. I mainly use VPN to get around firewall of China so security isn't really an issue for me.

Yeah, unfortunately the others are a bigger pain, main reason why I use PPTP myself.

Wouldn't getting around China's firewall mean that security is more, not less, important? I know that if I was in a country where the government could imprison me for what I read or write, I'd make double-certain my security is up to par.

In particular, note that MS-CHAPv2 with PPTP only provide 56-bit security.

I did L2TP/IPsec for mine since they are supported by default on iphone and android devices. Getting OpenVPN working on the iPhone requires jailbreaking, and android requires your phone to be rooted.

Plus, windows and OSX have native L2TP/IPsec support.

As a side note: If you have an android device running ICS (I assume JB works as well but I don't have any currently to test), you can run OpenVPN for Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.blinkt.open...

This presents a nice frontend to OpenVPN and doesn't need root.

Key points from the description are "Uses the new VPNService API that requires neither Jailbreak nor root on your Telephone." & "Only tun mode support (Sorry no tap, with Android 4.0 only tun can be supported)."

I use OpenVPN Server (with my WRT54GL router) and my Android Device(a Nexus One with CyanogenMod Nightly) connects correctly. The initial configuration was very hard for me (specially the certs) but i'm satisfied.

I have tried PPTP Server (simpler than Open VPN) but i avoid it because vulnerabilities.

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