Hi Guys,

New member here. I am currently in the process of building out my first UNRAID Server. I will be using it for Plex, Sonarr, pi-hole, home assistant, Mac OS VM and a Windows 10 VM...at least for now.

It will be running with the following specs :

Ryzen 5 3600

Asus X570-Pro

32GB 3200Mhz

GT-710 2GB

Not decided on storage pools as yet.

 

I have purchased an Asus AC3200 router that I intend to use the Sabai OS on for my VPN needs. I really like the gateway feature that allows me to set what devices I want to pass through the VPN. Now I have a couple questions. 

 

Can I use Pi-Hole and VPN pass through simultaneously?

 

I see Sabai also offers a VPN accelerator here:

https://www.sabaitechnology.com/vpn-accelerator-V5/

At face value it just looks to be a low powered computer that does the heavy lifting for the router and results in increased speed. There is nothing propriety about it. 

 

Is there a way I can maybe use UnRAID to do the same VPN acceleration on this network ? Since I have the cores and the RAM available, I would imagine the UnRAID can handle this with ease ? I know it does VPN but I am not sure exactly how the VPN accelerator is working and how I can integrate that functionality to UnRAID without having to buy additional hardware from Sabai. Thank you in advance.

 

There is no such thing as "VPN acceleration". That sounds like snake oil to me.

What the device does is simply offloading processing power from the router, which is usually heavily under-powered (and even underclocked to keep cool). In fact, the device looks like a typical PFsense box. It would "accelerate" VPN as much as your a GTX 1070 would "accelerate" gaming if compared to a GT 710, no funky juice needed.

 

Your "VPN needs" is a rather vague term. Perhaps list out the activities you want to be behind a VPN so we can help you get what you need.

 

I am currently utilising docker --net=container parameter to route my PiHole docker through an OpenVPN docker. See guide box quoted below. You can basically route any docker through a VPN using that method.

There are also plenty of dockers in the CA store with VPN integrated so you can use them too. That includes a Privoxy (i.e. http proxy) with VPN to route your web-browsing.

 

Guide post:

 

Great! Thank you for your response. I wasn't sure what is allowed so I went the vauge route being my first post. For VPN, I basically just want my media clients(nvidia shield/firestick) to have US IPs for the major streaming services. So if I understand correctly, I can use a pfsense docker to speed up the VPN connection? I want to pass through as much bandwidth as possible to the devices. 

Edited August 24, 20205 yr by Kronos2311

39 minutes ago, Kronos2311 said:

Great! Thank you for your response. I wasn't sure what is allowed so I went the vauge route being my first post. For VPN, I basically just want my media clients(nvidia shield/firestick) to have US IPs for the major streaming services. So if I understand correctly, I can use a pfsense docker to speed up the VPN connection? I want to pass through as much bandwidth as possible to the devices. 

You can't run pfsense as a docker but as a VM. You need to pass through the NIC to the PFSense VM to do the routing. Your Unraid server essentially becomes a router in that case. Configuring PFSense VM is quite a bit more involving though + you need to invest in an Intel NIC with multiple port + a free PCIe slot.

 

You should try using router first though. My hunch is you won't need any kind of "acceleration". For network-based stuff, I always prefer to run it on the router instead of offloading, unless the apps have native support for VPN (which I don't think you shield/firestick do).