Any easy way to select from list of VPN servers?

[deepthort]

Hi all,

After a huge amount of effort over a long period I finally managed to set up OpenVPN to connect to my chosen VPN service and it works fine. I'm sure many others have already achieved similar success in this Herculean task. So far so good. :)

However, whereas on my PC or tablet or phone I can easily switch between the many different servers provided by my VPN supplier in many different countries (by selction from a nice, user-friendly dropdown list, with almost instant switching), it's very different on my E2 box. Here, if I want or need to change server, I have to go to my PC, load Filezilla, login to the box and replace the .conf file in /etc/openvpn/ with a different one and then restart openvpn! Unless I've missed something, of course.

I'm thinking to myself, surely there must be a better way, maybe through a plugin or script or something that could replicate what's available on other platforms? Unfortunately, despite trawling around a fair few sites I've not found anything which even vaguely matches the description.

Does anyone have any information, knowledge or opinions? I'd be keen to learn...
Martin

[SpaceRat]

Actually what you are talking about is not a VPN but a tunnel connection to the internet.

You shouldn't use your E2 box as an endpoint for internet connections at all!
Such tunnel connections - often falsely referred to as "VPN" - are internet connections, rendering your router's firewall useless!

A VPN is - or rather: a real VPN would be - a connection
- between two (or more) trustworthy LANs
or
- between a trustworthy LAN and one (or more) trustworthy client(s).

No mentally sane developer encourages using an E2 box as an internet endpoint.

[deepthort]

Hello Spacerat,

Thank you for your concerned warnings, similar to others I've seen these in several posts on this forum, but I must beg to differ. The sort of "VPN" I have (or "tunnel" if you prefer) is decidedly not an open, free-to-all invitation to hack into my network. It is in fact, yes, a tunnel but one which which has substantial advantages. Firstly, it hides all my traffic from my ISP who might well otherwise block access to particular sites, monitor my activity or report me for abetting circumvention of copyright rules. What's more, far from being a security exposure, it actually helps protect me from unsolicited and dangerous incoming traffic by filtering this out at the VPN server end. The tunnel itself is especially secure as it uses UDP/TLS authorisation which is, I believe, the most effective and secure type available. I selected this particularly as I was aware of the deficiencies of other available protocols. I also have the same VPN on my Windows machine at both machine and browser levels. The former, incidentally, provides an additional firewall supplementing that of the router.

All in all then I feel much more comfortable using TSMedia and the like with the VPN/tunnel in place than without. Only the process (or, really, lack of one!) on the E2 box for selecting which VPN server to use is an issue, hence the question.

Martin

[kokojnr]

Hi all,

After a huge amount of effort over a long period I finally managed to set up OpenVPN to connect to my chosen VPN service and it works fine. I'm sure many others have already achieved similar success in this Herculean task. So far so good. :)

However, whereas on my PC or tablet or phone I can easily switch between the many different servers provided by my VPN supplier in many different countries (by selction from a nice, user-friendly dropdown list, with almost instant switching), it's very different on my E2 box. Here, if I want or need to change server, I have to go to my PC, load Filezilla, login to the box and replace the .conf file in /etc/openvpn/ with a different one and then restart openvpn! Unless I've missed something, of course.

I'm thinking to myself, surely there must be a better way, maybe through a plugin or script or something that could replicate what's available on other platforms? Unfortunately, despite trawling around a fair few sites I've not found anything which even vaguely matches the description.

Does anyone have any information, knowledge or opinions? I'd be keen to learn...
Martin
Have been thinking about this, would be nice if it's possible.

I use PIA VPN because my internet provider randomly blocks access to my IPTV stream.

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