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Routing all my internet traffic through a VPN
I just started with my home server, so I'm relatively new to all this. I currently have PiHole running on my server so all of the ads on my network get stopped there. I also have Wireguard in case I need to connect into my network remotely (but that's very rare). I was wondering if there's a way to also route my entire network through a VPN (I currently use Surfshark but I can always change providers). Basically, I'd like to have all my traffic on the network go through an external VPN to hide my traffic from my ISP, and then have everything go through PiHole before it goes to my devices to continue blocking ads. I'd also like to be able to turn the VPN on and off via my home server (Ubuntu) if that's possible. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
do you use docker containers? if so, look into gluetun, it’s designed so you can pick which containers run all their traffic through a vpn tunnel, slightly more elegant than doing all your traffic
Get a router that supports VPN client.
Firewalla
Opnsense
OpenWRT
Sophos
IPFire.
Don't get Pfsense
Why not pfSense?
I would also add MikroTik to this list.
Is there a way to do this through the home server though? Or do I have to use the router itself?
Does TP Link Qualify?
Routing all your traffic through VPN seems unnecessary, but if privacy is important to you and you already run a small server, you should look into TOR and maybe become a knot yourself. It is even more private than a VPN, in which case your connection data will be with the provider of the VPN instead of your ISP.
For "normal" everyday use a app or a browser plugin should provide sufficient privacy. Or the TOR Browser.
Unless you live in China under the great firewall, you don’t want to route all your traffic trough VPN. It will slow it down considerably. You want to route only some certain (illegal) traffic trough VPN, such as torrent.
It depends on what your internet speed is and what speed you actually need, vs the level of privacy you need.