[ale] VPN recommendations?

[Alex Carver]

On 2018-03-20 08:55, Arie vW wrote:
> Not to hijack the thread, but I recently began toying with the idea of
> purchasing Mullvad as an external VPN. I currently have an OpenVPN Server
> running on my server at home which I use to access my home network from
> time to time (mainly to stream my Plex library).
> Now forgive my ignorance, and if I need to read up on a topic please don't
> hesitate to point me in that direction; but is it possible to run my own
> OpenVPN server next to a Mullvad VPN? Is it just a matter of having both
> VPN's config files in /etc/openvpn and then choosing which instance to
> launch? I probably would not attempt to run them in tandem, although if I
> were to connect to my home server via my VPN then try and open Mullvad
> would it cause issues?
> 
>>From https://mullvad.net/en/guides/linux-openvpn-installation/:
> 3. copy mullvad_ca.crt, mullvad_crl.pem, mullvad_xx.conf and
> mullvad_userpass.txt  to /etc/openvpn/  (use sudo)
> Cheers,
> Arie

You can have as many profiles as you want on any particular device
(assuming the same client software is used, e.g. openvpn, etc.) and you
can have more than one client software as well (I have two on my phone,
one for work and one for home) though they may or may not run together
(see below).  Just choose the one you want to use at that time and go.

Running one and then running the other will likely cause you extreme
headaches if you weren't thinking about that when setting up the
profiles.  You have to decide what each profile is intended to do,
whether it's a partial or full tunnel, and how you want traffic routed.

In an extreme example:  if you had set up both as full tunnels started
them both (since your personal VPN is accessible from the Internet at
large) you would probably end up using a VPN over a VPN (tunnel inside a
tunnel) and everything would be super slow but working.

If they were partial tunnels things might still work though it depends
on the device and whether more than one VPN can operate.  My phone
refuses to start two VPNs, a laptop might not complain so much.