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Low End VPS for PiHole and OpenVPN
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Low End VPS for PiHole and OpenVPN

I am looking for a VPS hosting to host PiHole and OpenVPN so that my household internet can be permanently routed through this VPN to stop ads/telemetry/isp spying and ISP blocking of services. I currently run this setup through a Raspberry PI, but since it’s self hosted@home it cannot circumvent the ISP blocking.

We have a 500Mbps connection with 5-6 smart devices always connected and 3-4 concurrently people browsing (MAX) and some occasional downloading.

I assume I would need a low end VPS with 1 core and 512-1G of RAM, would be enough? Would a 1Gbps connectivity be enough to ensure we experience no lag due to the VPN?

Comments

  • tetechtetech Member
    edited October 2020

    Depends if port is dedicated or shared between 1000 people. You're always going to get some lag due to latency.

  • Your physical location please?
    500mbit port would be plenty for upto 10-16ms latency.

    If you're in asia , grab a 512mb kvm with dedi IPV4 in singapore. (for pihole)
    Hostus, Nexusbytes, all have stable candidates for SGP.

    Thanked by 1seriesn
  • If using OpenVPN to connect from your home network to the VPS, besides latency, you will also have to consider what device is being used to create the VPN. If using a router, or the Rapsberry Pi, it might not be able to reach 500Mbps throughput, so a 1Gbps port on the VPS could be overkill.

  • @vimalware said:
    Your physical location please?
    500mbit port would be plenty for upto 10-16ms latency.

    If you're in asia , grab a 512mb kvm with dedi IPV4 in singapore. (for pihole)
    Hostus, Nexusbytes, all have stable candidates for SGP.

    India.. and yea, Singapore would work perfectly.
    Now need to hunt a vfm vps for vpn with singapore DC :)

  • DataIdeas-JoshDataIdeas-Josh Member, Patron Provider

    If still want to use a Rpi.
    You could use https://RPIServers.com

  • Are you sure you want pihole? Advertisers often use same domain for serving ads now . It is not as effective as it used to be.
    Also in india most blocks are dpi based so dns doesn't help much there

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • vimalwarevimalware Member
    edited October 2020

    @thelowerend said:

    @vimalware said:
    Your physical location please?
    500mbit port would be plenty for upto 10-16ms latency.

    If you're in asia , grab a 512mb kvm with dedi IPV4 in singapore. (for pihole)
    Hostus, Nexusbytes, all have stable candidates for SGP.

    India.. and yea, Singapore would work perfectly.
    Now need to hunt a vfm vps for vpn with singapore DC :)

    $24/yr HostUS special (check @AlexanderM 's previous June thread) . It's good for 250GB of vpn usage. (500gb quota). Very happy 24/7 user.

    Bypass the vpn for streaming apps obviously.

    Caveat: you won't be able to hit anywhere close to 500 mbit on a single tcp connection (because of the 60ms SGP latency), like you do when you connect to local caches of Netflix /Prime.
    But multiple vpn connections should resolve that.

    Thanked by 1AlexanderM
  • vimalwarevimalware Member
    edited October 2020

    @codelock said:
    Are you sure you want pihole? Advertisers often use same domain for serving ads now . It is not as effective as it used to be.
    Also in india most blocks are dpi based so dns doesn't help much there

    I have pihole listen only on tun0/wg0 on the VPS(port 53) . Add a drop rule for external dns traffic, just in case some config breaks .

    YouTube in-app ads and IG use same-domain techniques, so cannot be blocked with any hostname based method.

    But it works well for the 99% of other mobile in-app ads

  • AbdAbd Member, Patron Provider

    @thelowerend you can have a look at our NAT VPS Singapore..
    Also if your router/rpi can make use of wireguard VPN, that will give considerably higher speeds...openvpn is slower comparatively.

  • PHDanPHDan Member
    edited October 2020

    You can run Pi-hole on 256MB Ram. You don't need a dedicated IP address if this is just your remote. Get a dirt cheap, no frills 1 vcore of a 486 with half a gig RAM and 16G drive space. No real need for anything faster than DSL, all you're sending is DNS traffic, you don't throw all your traffic through it. NAT works just fine.

    Thanked by 3bdl Tion raindog308
  • @PHDan said:
    You can run Pi-hole on 256MB Ram. You don't need a dedicated IP address if this is just your remote. Get a dirt cheap, no frills 1 vcore of a 486 with half a gig RAM and 16G drive space. No real need for anything faster than DSL, all you're sending is DNS traffic, you don't throw all your traffic through it. NAT works just fine.

    He wants to circumvent his ISP’s DPI(?) — he’ll definitely need to tunnel on top of Pi-hole.

  • @doghouch said: He wants to circumvent his ISP’s DPI(?)

    Then why even use Pi-hole? Just use a VPN provider and their smart DNS?

  • @PHDan said:

    @doghouch said: He wants to circumvent his ISP’s DPI(?)

    Then why even use Pi-hole? Just use a VPN provider and their smart DNS?

    Ask the OP - this is not something I’ll be using :P

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    You will not get 500 mbps of throughput over the internet with OpenVPN in real world conditions.

    Think of around 100 mbps for a more realistic number.

    Thanked by 2vimalware raindog308
  • I am running a adguardhome+wireguard setting in a 256 nat box almost a year. It works perfectly good.

    512mb is too much for a personal vpn. I think 128 can do the job too.

  • If you're tunneling on your router, OpenVPN will never be able to remotely reach 500mbps. Maybe try WireGuard, but I hear packet loss in India gets bad at certain times so maybe not...

  • Yeah, WireGuard is the better choice. I run a WireGuard+PiHole+Unbound combo and route all my traffic through it. It pretty much maxes out my connection all the time and removes those ads. My current setup runs on 512 too but 256 should be plenty with room to spare.

  • Did anyone tried AdGuard Home instead of PiHole?

  • TimboJonesTimboJones Member
    edited October 2020

    If they are blocking DNS, can't he just make his home rpi use DNS over https and skip the VPN?

    https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/

    (And yes, this is the right solution unless Cloudflare blocked in India).

    Edit: what is meant by "ISP blocking of services"? Do you mean they block incoming or outgoing traffic on specific ports? If so, what?

    Thanked by 1Abd
  • AbdAbd Member, Patron Provider

    @TimboJones I think he means some websites are blocked in India

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