OpenVPN on the Beaglebone Black
I recently began using my Beaglebone Black always-on linux server to host an OpenVPN server which I can access from my Android phone. This lets me form a secure, encrypted tunnel from wherever I’m roaming (such as public wifi hotspots) back to my house. All my data traffic is routed through this secure connection, so if I’m browsing the web or logging in to things on my phone, it cannot be eavesdropped on from the point of the public wifi router.
I found this OpenVPN portion of the Debian wiki to be extremely helpful. The commands listed there should all be performed on the beaglebone. That wiki covers setting up OpenVPN on iOS/Android devices, which consists of generating a .ovpn file (an “OpenVPN profile” file) on the beaglebone, which uses the debian linux variant by default. Once you have created that .ovpn file you simply transfer it securely to your phone and then, in the phone’s OpenVPN app, select that file from your phone’s storage and you’re all set.
Cool to have secured connections from public wifi!
Does this work when connecting from an Android or iPhone?
Well I only tested it with my Android phone and it worked, I believe with an iPhone things are even easier. An iPhone user can access VPN controls from within the Settings app and they don’t need to download a separate OpenVPN app (… but this is something I need to test now that I’ve switched back to an iPhone!).