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Suppose we have two VPN servers: one located in Hong Kong and another in the United States. The HK server runs OpenConnect VPN, which is very effective to bypass the Great Firewall of China. HK server and US server are connected over WireGuard VPN tunnel. What we want to achieve is default traffic from VPN clients in China Mainland goes through the HK VPN and specific domains go through the US VPN, so you can have access to Google Gemini and ChatGPT. Desired behavior Default traffic: OpenConnect Client –> HK VPS(ocserv) –> HK Internet Specific domains: (chatgpt.com gemini.google.com play.google.com truthsocial.com,…

If you want to turn a Raspberry Pi running Raspberry Pi OS (Debian-based) into a router, it is entirely feasible. Many homelab enthusiasts use this approach because it offers much more flexibility than a traditional router firmware like OpenWRT. What You’ll Need Hardware A Raspberry Pi 4 (recommended) or newer A microSD card or SSD with Raspberry Pi OS Lite Two network interfaces: One for WAN (Internet connection) One for LAN (your home network) The Raspberry Pi 4 has one built-in Gigabit Ethernet port (eth0), so you’ll usually add a USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter for the second interface. Example:…

Setting up AdGuard Home on Debian is a great way to get network-wide ad blocking and DNS privacy. This guide will walk you through each step to get a fully functional setup. 📋 What You’ll Need Before You Start A Debian server with root access (or a user with sudo privileges) The server’s IP address should be static. You can either set this directly on the server or configure a DHCP reservation for it in your router’s settings. This is crucial to ensure your DNS server’s IP never changes 🚀 Step 1: Install AdGuard Home The easiest way is to…

Improving photo performance in Nextcloud is one of the most impactful upgrades you can make, as the default behavior tends to render images lazily (on-demand), which completely chokes the system when you try to scroll through a timeline. To transform it from sluggish to snappy, you need to tackle preview pre-generation, database/memory caching, and consider a high-performance alternative frontend. 1. The Game Changer: Use the “Preview Generator” App By default, Nextcloud generates thumbnails on the fly as you scroll. To fix this, download the Preview Generator app from the Nextcloud App Store, which forces Nextcloud to generate previews in the…

In a previous tutorial, we discussed the Systemback application that allows us to create a live system from an installed Linux system. However, Systemback was no longer maintained. Luckily, we can do the same with standard ISO packaging tools in Linux. The key is to create a hybrid ISO that contains both legacy BIOS and UEFI boot records. Two approaches are available : Method 1 (GRUB 2) is modern and recommended. Method 2 (SYSLINUX) is a viable alternative. Feature ✅ Method 1: GRUB 2 (Recommended) ⚠️ Method 2: SYSLINUX (Alternative) Core idea Build a standalone GRUB 2 image Convert an…

For the first time in decades, a genuine migration is underway — not just by enthusiasts, but by regular users, enterprises, and governments. The combination of Microsoft’s controversial features and Linux’s unprecedented maturity is reshaping the desktop landscape. 🚪 The Push: Why People Are Running From Windows Microsoft’s recent decisions have created significant friction. From forced accounts to AI surveillance, millions are now actively looking for alternatives. The flowchart below summarizes the core pain points and their consequences. 🔍 Key Frustrations Driving Users Away Invasion of Privacy: Windows 11 telemetry is aggressive, and the AI-powered Recall tool (continuously taking screenshots)…

Startups crave speed. The market never waits for the cautious or the unprepared. Founders sprint toward funding deadlines, product launches, and that elusive promise of “scaling fast.” Here’s the thing: threats aren’t concerned about ambition. Cybercriminals work just as fast, sometimes faster, living in code and shadows while founders are buried in pitch decks. Too many people hold the dangerous belief that security can wait until “later,” leading to the demise of numerous companies before they have a chance to establish themselves. Understanding security isn’t a technical hobby. It is a non-negotiable business skill. Ignore it, and everything else starts…

This tutorial is going to show you how to install Mastodon on Ubuntu 24.04 server. Mastodon is an open-source decentralized social network. It’s like Twitter, but decentralized. You can set up a Mastodon instance on your server and connect to other Mastodon instances. Mastodon Features Total data control. You can download all your posts and migrate to another instance. Never worry about account termination by a central organization. Each Mastodon instance can set its own rules. 500 character limit per post. Mobile-friendly, responsive web design. Users can read or post from laptop, tablet and phone. 100% free open source. No…

This tutorial is going to show you how to run your own OpenVPN server on Ubuntu 24.04. OpenVPN is an open-source, robust, and highly flexible VPN solution. Stunnel is a tool that tunnels OpenVPN traffic over TCP port 443 in TLS mode, to bypass firewall blocking. Why Set Up Your Own VPN Server? Maybe you are a VPN service provider or a system administrator, which behooves you to set up your own VPN server. You don’t trust the no-logging policy of VPN service providers, so you go the self-host route. You can use VPN to implement network security policy. For…

This tutorial shows you how to set up your own web proxy on Ubuntu 24.04 server. A web proxy is a website where a user enters a specific URL to unblock website. There are a multitude of web proxy scripts that can be used to set up your own web proxy. Glype and PHP-Proxy will be used in this tutorial.  Glype is a very popular web proxy script.  PHP-Proxy is a good alternative. You can choose one of them. In my test, PHP-Proxy is faster and works better with popular websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, because it’s being actively…

This tutorial will show you how to install the Ghost blogging platform on an Ubuntu 24.04 server. Ghost is an open-source blogging software coded in Node.js, allowing you to create modern, beautiful blogs. Compared to WordPress, Ghost is lightweight and much faster because it’s built specifically for blogging and isn’t a comprehensive content management system like WordPress. Ghost Features At the time of writing, the latest version of Ghost is v5.80.2, released on March 28, 2024. Features of Ghost are as follows: A Markdown-based editor allows you to quickly write posts. Simple content management. Collaborative editing with your team. Scheduled…

This tutorial is going to show you how to install WordPress on Ubuntu 24.04 with Apache, MariaDB, and PHP8.3 (LAMP Stack). WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) in the world. It is estimated that more than a third of websites today are powered by WordPress. PHP8.3 made into the Ubuntu 24.04 repository and WordPress runs perfectly with it. Prerequisite 1. To follow this tutorial, you need an Ubuntu 24.04 OS running on a remote server. If you are looking for a virtual private server (VPS), I recommend Kamatera VPS, which features: 30 days free trial. Starts at…

This tutorial will be showing you how to install Jellyfin media server on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS server/desktop. Jellyfin is a free, open-source application that allows you to organize your movies, TV shows, music and photos in one beautiful interface and stream those media files on your PC, tablet, phone, TV, Roku, etc on the network or over the Internet. Jellyfin can be installed on Linux, MacOS and Windows. Jellyfin Features Jellyfin is a fork from the Emby media server. It packs a lot of the same features as Plex and Emby. Unlike Plex or Emby, Jellyfin is 100% free and…

This tutorial is going to show you how to set up Shadowsocks proxy server on Ubuntu 24.04. Shadowsocks is a lightweight, fast, and secure Socks5 proxy to bypass Internet censorship. We will learn how to set up the server-side and how to configure the desktop client. There are many implementations of Shadowsocks, writtern in different programming languages. This tutorial shows you how to use Shadowsocks-libev, because: It’s written in C, very fast even on low-end machines. It’s well-maintained. It’s the most feature-rich implementation. TCP fast open, multiuser, management API, redirect mode, tunnel mode, UDP relay, AEAD ciphers, and plugins are…

This tutorial is going to show you how to run your own VPN server by installing SoftEther VPN server on Ubuntu 24.04. SoftEther VPN is an open-source multi-protocol VPN software that allows individual users to connect to a remote network. Why Set Up Your Own VPN Server? Maybe you are a VPN service provider or a system administrator, which behooves you to set up our own VPN server. You don’t trust the no-logging policy of VPN service providers, so you go the self-host route. You can use VPN to implement network security policy. For example, if you run your own…

Firewalld is the standard firewall software on RHEL-based Linux systems (Fedora, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux). This tutorial is going to show you some basic usages of firewalld. Install Firewalld We can easily install it from the default software repository. sudo dnf install -y firewalld Start it and enable autostart on system boot. sudo systemctl enable –now firewalld Check status: sudo systemctl status firewalld If this is a server, then you probably want to allow SSH traffic, so you won’t be locked out of your server. sudo firewall-cmd –permanent –add-service=ssh Firewall Zone Unlike UFW, Firewalld is designed to work with multiple…

This tutorial will show you how to set up a local DNS resolver on Rocky Linux 9/Alma Linux 9, with the widely-used BIND9 DNS software. There are many synonyms for DNS resolver, some of which are listed below. They all refer to the same thing. full resolver (in contrast to stub resolver) DNS recursor recursive DNS server recursive resolver Also, be aware that A DNS server can also called a name server. Examples of DNS resolvers are 8.8.8.8 (Google public DNS server) and 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare public DNS server). The OS on your PC also has a resolver, although it’s called…