MiSTer FPGA Forum

So i've done a little poking around but unable to find any info, is it possible to setup a vpn on MiSTer?

Via Linux on the MiSTer? Not out of the box and it would be very impractical with significant performance implications.

Do you have any context? Site-to-site VPN? General purpose VPN service (NordVPN, ExpressVPN etc.)? Why do you need a VPN? It might be easier and more practical to configure your router to use the VPN.

You could tunnel SSH, but out of the box there are no other VPN solutions present on the MiSTer. Like AngelicLiver already said: what's your use case for this?

Building a Wireguard module is the best way to have a decently performing VPN on the host system itself. And yes, it is unclear, when and why it may be useful, so getting a dedicated device, something like GL-AR300M, is a much better option.

I would suggest getting a VPN router or some other hardware solution. Then it will just work on any OS and any device, including consoles.

This is a long shot and you might not want to go all in on this, but if VPN is a must for you it might be doable with MisterArch.

I see lots of possible vpn modules in a variety of network managers. I've never used any one of them so i can't exactly confirm.

In terms of wireguard you would definitelly need an extra kernel module, but i can arrange that pretty quickly. Done!

Surprised that nobody has asked why a VPN is even being considered... if you're using the MiSTer as a MiSTer, I'm not clear on why you would want to (I mean... I don't normally hear people talking about installing a VPN on their TVs or other appliances...).

If you're trying to use it as some kind of general-purpose device somewhat unrelated to playing games, then that's a different thing. But a Raspberry Pi is likely to be more flexible for general-purpose use.

Running a vpn with something like ipxtunnel (https://tldp.org/HOWTO/IPX-HOWTO-15.html), would enable multiplayer network games in ao486 as well, and serves as a great example for “why” someone would want to run a vpn client on-device….

dshadoff wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:07 am Surprised that nobody has asked why a VPN is even being considered... if you're using the MiSTer as a MiSTer, I'm not clear on why you would want to (I mean... I don't normally hear people talking about installing a VPN on their TVs or other appliances...).

Archive.org is blocked and github suffers from DNS poisoning where I live. Scripts that rely on these websites don't work on the MiSTer for me. I have to use the Windows version of update_all in order to use my VPN and update my MiSTer currently. A VPN on the MiSTer directly would be helpful for this purpose.

If you want to run the VPN in the MiSTer instead of the router I'd look for Wireguard since, as far as I know, it performs better on machines without AES-NI - like the DE10-Nano.

I live in China, so I also need VPN to run the update. Just run the VPN in your personal computer and access MiSTer using ssh. Once there, just set:

set HTTPS_PROXY=http://COMPUTER_IP:PORT
set HTTP_PROXY=socks5://COMPUTER_IP:PORT

Then, go to the scripts folder and run the update_all script (from the same ssh session), it will work.

hipsofjw wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:43 am

dshadoff wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:07 am Surprised that nobody has asked why a VPN is even being considered... if you're using the MiSTer as a MiSTer, I'm not clear on why you would want to (I mean... I don't normally hear people talking about installing a VPN on their TVs or other appliances...).

Archive.org is blocked and github suffers from DNS poisoning where I live. Scripts that rely on these websites don't work on the MiSTer for me. I have to use the Windows version of update_all in order to use my VPN and update my MiSTer currently. A VPN on the MiSTer directly would be helpful for this purpose.

You can do IP routing through a VPN if your router supports it. Then just set a static IP on the mister. It's also an option to find a way to do it on the MiSTer itself, but personally it would be easier to just make a special rule for that one device.

aberu wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 7:18 am

hipsofjw wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:43 am

dshadoff wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:07 am Surprised that nobody has asked why a VPN is even being considered... if you're using the MiSTer as a MiSTer, I'm not clear on why you would want to (I mean... I don't normally hear people talking about installing a VPN on their TVs or other appliances...).

Archive.org is blocked and github suffers from DNS poisoning where I live. Scripts that rely on these websites don't work on the MiSTer for me. I have to use the Windows version of update_all in order to use my VPN and update my MiSTer currently. A VPN on the MiSTer directly would be helpful for this purpose.

You can do IP routing through a VPN if your router supports it. Then just set a static IP on the mister. It's also an option to find a way to do it on the MiSTer itself, but personally it would be easier to just make a special rule for that one device.

Yes, I've considered this. I even bought a separate openwrt router for this purpose last year because domestic websites are basically impossible to connect to when connected to a VPN. Sadly, out of the two VPN services that actually work in this country, the one that functions well in my home and at work does not play well when used on a router. Servers constantly get blocked and changing the VPN settings on the router every time I wanted to use it was just too much of a pain.

Darn, that is a pain. Sorry to hear that.

I updated my kernel to include wireguard if anyone wants to use it.

aberu wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:56 pm Darn, that is a pain. Sorry to hear that.

Not the end of the world. Just a minor annoyance really. I'm lucky that I have easy access to the global internet on my Windows and Android devices. Not everyone who lives here does.

Anyway, I probably won't go through the effort of setting this all up (although it would be a good excuse to learn how to use Linux properly). I just was chiming in to give a good reason on why someone would want a VPN on their MiSTer.

You can use the SSH client on the MiSTer to act like a local Socks5 proxy over an SSH connection to elsewhere. Elsewhere could be a VPS somewhere or a cloud instance you only spin up for the occasion (cheap as you can pick a tiny one that'll only be running for minutes while you update).