
Tell HN: Commercial VPN service now in open source - v_ivanov
Hi folks!<p>Let me introduce myself.
I am CEO&#x2F;CTO&#x2F;CIO&#x2F;etc of russian SmartVPN.biz VPN service.<p>I couple years ago I got an idea to create my own startup - VPN service.
It was quite sudden idea, when a couple of friends asked me to give them access to my personal VPN server.
Of course I did not study the market, didn’t check how many such services are already exists. I’ve just started coding.
A little bit later I made working prototype and pushed it to production.<p>There were not so many expenses, only my free time and 20$&#x2F;month for low-end vps.<p>A year and a half the project was in production. Lots of things changed meanwhile.
Internet in russia became very limited and censored.
I’m glad that I helped people to bypass stupid internet limitations in our country.
I’ve also experienced DDoS attacks twice, it is really exciting feeling, when you understand, that your service is real, and someone wants to get it down.<p>But the time is passing, my interests and priorities changed too. That is why I decided to shutdown my startup.
I don’t want to hide my sources on hard drive, so I’ve decided to make them opensource. Totally.
I published them on github https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;smartvpnbiz with MIT license.
So anyone can fork it, use anyway you want. You can try yourself in this hard business.<p>This is not an ads, I just want to help someone, who may need my experience.
So I’ll be glad if my service will help anyone.
======
benedikt
Hi there,

I did the same. I founded a VPN provider[0] in my free time. It is still
running, but I have at times been close to shutting it down.

Most of my code has been open the whole time and is on github[1]. Some
internal tools and the website are not on github though. I went with AGPL for
license. It'll make my day if someone forks my code and founds their own
provider.

I operate out of Iceland and most of my clients are Icelandic. The biggest use
case for my service was ISPs in Iceland charging extra for international
bandwidth. By having my servers in Icelandic datacenters, I was able to
provide my customers with significantly lower prices for bandwidth, thereby
lowering the cost of internet for a lot of people. Considering the huge time
investment that has gone into this side project, I have not made much money
from it. But knowing that I helped my internet usage more affordable is
something that has made this project meaningful for me.

Since I started, lots of things have changed. Some ISPs are now offering
unmetered connections (this was unheard of before). Others have lowered their
prices. I have heard people attributing part of these changes to me and my
company.

I have not experienced DDoS attacks like you, but I have been the subject of
meetings at some regulatory boards in Iceland, as well as at the monopoly
behind the submarine cables[2] connecting Iceland to the world (the source of
this dual-pricing schemes). One hosting provider was forced to change their
core routing shortly after I starting hosting with them, to make me unable to
host there. Other providers have come under preassure from this monopoly to
kick me out. Like you said, you feel like your service was real -- someone
with a vested interest against it was watching me.

Some time in the near future I will shut down the service. It's just time to
move on to other projects and time to recognize that it's fulfilled it's
usefulness. I know I will walk away from this project with a great sense of
accomplishment, I am proud and happy with the work I did.

[0]: www.lokun.is

[1]: [https://www.github.com/benediktkr/lokun-
record](https://www.github.com/benediktkr/lokun-record)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARICE-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARICE-1)

~~~
MichaelGG
How exactly do you save them money? If they connect from Iceland to Iceland,
they haven't changed their point of origin right? So any use of overseas
servers would still cost them?

~~~
benedikt
Usually, home users would by a fiber/dsl connection which includes an
unlimited amount of domestic bandwidth and a set amount of "international
bandwidth", typically from 10GB to 2000GB. When exceeding this quota, users
would typically be billed somewhere around $15 for each 10GB increment they
went over the quota.

The size (measured in GB) of the international bandwidth "addon" determined
the price of the connection far more than the speed of it.

By hosting my servers in Iceland, the traffic through the VPN would not count
towards the "international bandwidth" of my users. And since I was hosting in
datacenters, I would be paying less for the bandwidth than at a typical home
connection.

~~~
MichaelGG
Ah gross, that's pretty messed up. I guess I have s romantic view of Iceland
where they wouldn't let that cheesy kinda pricing to exist. Or especially that
they'd fight your company. Insane.

~~~
benedikt
Indeed. But there are also dual pricing schemes in datacenters. They don't
want you to peer with RIX (Eeykjavík Internet Exchange) and charge those who
do a higher price (hence forcing one hosting provider to change their routing.

------
2bluesc
This is an interesting read! Like some of the others here I too am trying
this. A friend and I founded a VPN provider[0] targeting short term
subscriptions (i.e. VPN while at a coffee shop, etc) and later some other
novel features as we get further down the road.

I first got an idea for this after publishing my OpenVPN docker image [1][2]
which received more attention then I ever imagined. The BackRoad[0] service
runs all the VPNs with the exact docker image in the public github repo[2] +
CoreOS and all that jazz to make it scale.

I come from a hardware background where starting something is completely
different then a web service. I think it's interesting with only minimal risk
as you've pointed out.

Thanks for sharing!

[0] [http://backroad.io](http://backroad.io)

[1]
[https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kylemanna/openvpn/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kylemanna/openvpn/)

[2] [https://github.com/kylemanna/docker-
openvpn](https://github.com/kylemanna/docker-openvpn)

~~~
v_ivanov
I've been looking on docker too, thanks!

------
dclusin
Thought about doing this. Questions:

-Which VPN server software did you use? -Did build your own custom client wrapper, or did you have people download something like OpenVPN and enter the configuration info themselves

-How many customers did u end up getting? -Was it hard to acquire customers? -Were people more price sensitive or feature sensitive?

~~~
v_ivanov
I used OpenVPN. Didn't have enough time to build custom client wrapper. So our
customers used some openvpn client, or viscosity.

We had about 400 registred clients, of course not all were active and paying.

Getting paying customer is quite hard. Some people just register. Others
register, pay, but do not start using. Some of them use service for 2 months,
then leave. After 2 months they come back.

There different requirements, but most of people want super easy install
process. But all of them have different network configurations, so even with
simple client you will have to spent time helping people to start using
service.

My service was low-end, it was 3$/month.

~~~
bigiain
FWIW, that customer churn and on again off again usage pattern might not be
anything to do with your service. I use inexpensive VPNs where I can register
with an anonymous prepaid credit card and a "throw away" email address - I'll
then use the service until the credit runs out and then switch to another
inexpensive VPN provider. I think of it as "spreading my needle across as many
haystacks as possible".

~~~
v_ivanov
Probably. But they used the same email. Simply they used service from time to
time

------
pessimizer
You're a fantastic person, and thanks for doing this. Hopefully it'll be the
spark that ignites someone else's passion.

~~~
v_ivanov
Thanks for pleasant words

------
borski
This is great - thanks for doing this. We did something similar, helping
people build their own OpenVPN servers here:
[https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/vpn](https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/vpn)

I'm all for more great and easy-to-use VPN tools! :)

------
JamesWT
I'm also setting up a small VPN service with friends. Mostly aimed at
penetrating the firewall at my university. Although we chose to use SoftEther
VPN instead of OpenVPN.

[https://www.softether.org/](https://www.softether.org/)

~~~
v_ivanov
It is really powerfull solution, but when it was opensourced it didn't look
like server-side project

------
uzyn
Thanks for doing this!

Something I've always wondered, for the VPN providers out there, how do you
guys protect yourself from the liability as a result from the actions of your
customers, whom are supposedly anonymous?

~~~
v_ivanov
Hi! Every business has its risks. Some customers may break the laws. Mostly we
faced downloading stolen films, software and other stuff.

Real hackers and carders do not use low-end cheap VPN.

So our customers were mostly people who just want to bypass government blocks.

------
caspereeko
You can use oh-my-vpn to setup shared VPN server with your friends.
[https://github.com/alaa/oh-my-vpn](https://github.com/alaa/oh-my-vpn)

------
joshmn
I see you baked most of everything from scratch as far as your control panel
goes. Is there any reason why you didn't simply opt for something like WHMCS
and then bake in your own API wrapper?

~~~
v_ivanov
I just love coding. The second reason that initially I wanted custom solution,
that can be flexible. With my own project built from scratch I could introduce
new any features much faster.

------
rasengan
VPNs are cool :D

------
eps
> Internet in russia became very limited and censored.

I guess that you must really be craving attention or perhaps it was a part of
your marketing pitch, but try and not exaggerate things beyond ridiculous.
Internet in Russia is a far cry from being "very limited". I travel there
every few months to see family and I'm yet to hit _any_ limitations or
blacklists.

~~~
cabirum
I am consistently annoyed that about 3 out of 30 links on every HN page are
blocked in Russia. They are not intentionally blocked - it's collateral damage
because they happen to share same ip address with censored websites. A single
blocked Cloudflare ip can make a thousand websites unavailable.

