Any Raspberry Pi within an Ethernet network can be used as a wireless access point, but today we will pump it up with more secure and anonymous internet connection, but first lets learn about the types of Tor and VPN connections:
1- Tor over VPN
The above setup will only work if the VPN connection is up before running Tor browser. Then Tor browser will connect to tor over VPN and all other applications will simply connect over VPN.
PROS:
1- Hide Tor from your ISP.
2- VPN provider cannot see your traffic.
3- The Tor entry-node cannot see your real IP, it will get the VPN provider IP.
2- VPN over Tor
This connection setup works within VPN provider support, in this setup your data will be encrypted by the VPN while entering and exiting TOR nodes before it ends up routed to the Internet.
PROS:
1- Your VPN provider cannot see your real IP, only the TOR exit node can.
2- Bypass any website that blocks TOR, as your connection to TOR is hidden by your VPN and the website will get your VPN IP.
learn more about the difference in details here https://airvpn.org/tor/
Now lets start setting our access point…
What you’ll need
1- RaspberryPi with the latest release of Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) Lite, you can use Raspberry Pi Imager to install the OS in an SDcard.
2- Ethernet connection with an internet :).
3-AirVPN Account.
Installation
The Installation divided into four parts as follow:
Part one: RaspAP WiFi management portal
1- Install RaspAP WiFi management, you can install using the following command:
sudo curl -sL https://install.raspap.com | bash
when Installation is completed it should reboot your RaspberryPi.
2- Once the reboot is completed, a new WiFi with SSID raspi-webgui will start to broadcast, connect to it using below credentials for quick test to make sure its working.
SSID: raspi-webgui
Password: ChangeMe
You can access RaspAP portal using below credentials in your browser by entering your RaspberryPi IP or 10.3.141.1 if you are connected to access point.
Username: admin
Password: secret
From the portal you can change and setup your access point as you want, use this WiKi to learn more about it.
Part two:install TOR
1- Install TOR:
sudo apt-get install tor
2- Config Torrc file to allow VPN client to control TOR:
echo -e “ControlPort 9051\nCookieAuthentication 1” | sudo tee /etc/tor/torrc
3- Restart the TOR service to apply the new configuration
sudo systemctl restart tor.service
Part three: install AirVPN Client
1- Download Eddie Client version 2.16.3 (AirVPN Client):
sudo wget "https://airvpn.org/mirrors/eddie.website/download/?platform=linux&arch=armhf&ui=cli&format=portable.tar.gz&version=2.16.3&r=0.08132300118915925" -O /opt/eddie-cli.tar.gz2- Change current directory and unzip the downloaded file:
cd /opt/
sudo tar -xf eddie-cli.tar.gz
sudo mv eddie-cli_2.16.3_linux_armhf_portable eddie
sudo cd eddie3- Finally let’s try it out with following command
replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your AirVPN credentials
./eddie-cli -connect -netlock.mode=Auto -login=USERNAME -password=PASSWORD 'proxy.tor.control.port=9051' 'proxy.port=9050' 'proxy.host=127.0.0.1' 'proxy.mode=tor'4- Give it a couple of minutes and check the log, until you see some log start with:
-Tor Control Guard IP detected
..
..
— Checking DNS
— Connected.
— OpenVPN > Initialization Sequence Completed5- Now your Access Point is working, connect to it with any device to test it out with https://ipapi.co/ to check your ip if different then your ISP.
Part four: turn it into service (run on startup)
Now with everything working grate, we need to make it run on boot:
1- Create file service:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/eddie.service
2- Copy the below service template:
replace USERNAME and PASSWORD with your AirVPN credentials
3- Save the file with ctrl+x and confirm with y and Enter
4- Enable the service to work on boot:
sudo systemctl enable eddie.service
5- Start the service:
sudo systemctl start eddie.service
6- Check the status of the service using:
sudo systemctl status eddie.service
That’s it, Finally now you have a fully Working anonymous access point
