Bypassing the Great Firewall in China
During my summer vacation in China, I encountered the challenges of accessing Google services and other websites due to the Great Firewall. After testing various solutions, I can confirm that most well-known VPN apps and servers do not work effectively. To help you bypass these restrictions, I recommend setting up your own VPN server before traveling to China. In this blog post, I’ll guide you through the process of creating a VPN server on AWS (Tokyo location) using simple commands.
Begin by launching an AWS server in the Tokyo location. You can follow these steps to install OpenVPN server:
$ wget https://git.io/vpn -O openvpn-ubuntu-install.sh $ chmod -v +x openvpn-ubuntu-install.sh $ ./openvpn-ubuntu-install.sh
Once the installation is complete, you need to copy the client.ovpn file. Install the OpenVPN application on both your phone and computer. You can find the app by searching the app store on your phone (or on mac app store).
It’s possible that your server's public IP address might get blocked. Don’t panic; just follow these steps to regain access:
- Navigate to the AWS console and stop, then start your server. This will assign you a new public IP address.
- Reconnect to your server and reinstall the OpenVPN application.
If you want to simplify this process, you can check out my easy-vpn repository for a more user-friendly approach to setting up your VPN server.