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Hi all,

New potential user here. I have a laptop running windows and I want to occasionally switch it into Clear OS, in order that it can run as a VPN router for some wifi and wired devices in my home so that I can pretend they are in my home country (rather than overseas, where I work) in order to access tv services that are geoblocked. I don't want to dual boot the laptop so my idea was to install clearOS on a bootable USB stick and boot the laptop off that when I want ClearOS going, and then it can be unplugged when not in use and used as a normal laptop.

But - not clear how to install ClearOS like this. There are plenty of options for *installing* it from a USB stick, but that's a different use case. I have no experience with Clear OS and this is my first time trying to run a server on a PC like this, but I do have at least a basic level of techhical literacy. Can someone point me in the right direction - are there any specific instructions? I previously used LinuxLive USB creator to do something similar for a different version of Linux - would that work here? And does what I'm doing sound like a sensible idea? Any feedback very welcome.

Thanks!!
Saturday, October 05 2019, 02:59 PM
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sunday, October 06 2019, 08:02 AM - #Permalink
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    Unfortunately I think you'd kill the USB stick very quickly. There is a problem with the logging, especially the audit logging which can write continually to to the disk. It is possible to turn it off by adding "audit=0" to the boot line in grub.cfg but really, running it from the USB stick is not a normal solution. It also makes your network set up somewhat tricky only sometimes having the device present on your LAN to do the VPN routing. You will also need an end point in your home country, or perhaps use the ibVPN app to route traffic to your home country.

    As an alternative idea, would you be able to run ClearOS in your home country as a VPN server? Then you can connect to it from wherever you are whenever you want and use that to route traffic home. You'd need to tweak the OpenVPN configuration to force all traffic through the VPN but it is a one line change to the config (either at the client end or the server end). I do that and have two alternative configs on my laptop and mobile which allow me to tunnel just LAN traffic or all traffic.

    [edit]
    ClearOS shouldn't even need to be the gateway in your home country. All you need to be able to do is port forward udp:1194 to it.
    [/edit]
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sunday, October 06 2019, 09:34 AM - #Permalink
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    Jim McJimster wrote:

    Hi all,

    New potential user here. I have a laptop running windows and I want to occasionally switch it into Clear OS, in order that it can run as a VPN router for some wifi and wired devices in my home so that I can pretend they are in my home country (rather than overseas, where I work) in order to access tv services that are geoblocked. I don't want to dual boot the laptop so my idea was to install clearOS on a bootable USB stick and boot the laptop off that when I want ClearOS going, and then it can be unplugged when not in use and used as a normal laptop.

    But - not clear how to install ClearOS like this. There are plenty of options for *installing* it from a USB stick, but that's a different use case. I have no experience with Clear OS and this is my first time trying to run a server on a PC like this, but I do have at least a basic level of techhical literacy. Can someone point me in the right direction - are there any specific instructions? I previously used LinuxLive USB creator to do something similar for a different version of Linux - would that work here? And does what I'm doing sound like a sensible idea? Any feedback very welcome.

    Thanks!!

    Why not use an old pc with a small disk and setup ClearOS as a (gateway)server.
    The install is very easy and support you can get on the forum.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sunday, October 06 2019, 06:52 PM - #Permalink
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    If I understand you correctly, all you want ClearOS for is to create a (temporary) OpenVPN client that connects to a matching server in your home country(?). Assuming that to be the case, it would also appear from your OP that you have a number of net-enabled devices that you want to use via that VPN connection - which probably means you have a hub/router - yes? (and that you already have an existing OpenVPN server that you connect to).

    Assuming that to be the case, would it not just be simpler to investigate if there is an alternative firmware (dd-wrt/tomata/etc) for your router with an embedded OpenVPN client? - I know that dd-wrt do firmware builds with OpenVPN clients. Once you have added the specific server configuration to the router, you'd then just need to enable the VPN via the web interface when you need to use it.
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