Howdy folks!
I am looking for suggestions for running an alternate VPN gateway for by streaming needs. Here’s the use case…
I use a VPN connection to connect to another country to stream shows. The VPN provider restricts the service to only 5 simultaneous connections. This part isn’t the issue as only me and my wife use it. The issue is that the provider doesn’t even allow logging into the app for more than 5 devices. I have the app installed on almost 10 devices in my home but not all of them are used simultaneously.
I am trying to get around this restriction by either running a dedicated Windows VM that runs the VPN client 24x7 and ICS…connected to a dedicated AP with the gateway set to the IP of the Windows VM. This way, any device I want to use with the VPN has to just connect to the dedicated WIFI network and be done. I have tested this option and it works…though I have yet to implement it completely.
I was wondering if there’s a better way of doing this? I have pfSense/OPNsense and I am trying to avoid running an alternate gateway on it, not sure if I can even run multiple gateways on it? I would appreciate your inputs, thank you!
Why not just build your own VPN using something like a 2 euro/month Linode/Hetzner instance (or whatever VPS provider is available in the country you want to watch from)?
Wireguard is pretty easy to set up on devices now (very good guide here), but if you don’t want to deal with that Tailscale uses it as a backend, is even easier to set up (literally just install and turn it on after logging in), and it’s free for personal use (one account, up to 20 devices).
I’d second this.
If there is only one country that the shows are in, just rent a VPS from that country and use it as a VPN target. OpenVPN is easy to setup and so is Wireguard. Then there is no second AP nonsense it’s just a VPN client like now, alebit with a little change in UI.
Doesn’t look bad honestly but I’m trying to avoid additional spending as I already have subscription to the VPN provider and also the hardware to host the VPN client. But let me look around for some local VPS providers and their pricing. Thank you!
I definitely don’t want to route all my traffic through that VPN. That’s why I want to set another gateway just for streaming with the ability to switch on demand. That’s where the dedicated WiFi AP comes into play.
That’s the thing, this replaces the VPN - you can drop the VPN subscription. The only thing you lose is the ease of switching countries (you’d need to put another VPS somewhere else for that), but it’s easy, cheap, reliable, and there’s no trust issues with a dodgy VPN provider.
I already have “lifetime subscription” with the VPN so there’s no additional spending