Virtual Machine VPN (And TOR) Guide

[TheDieselBoiler 5]

VIRTUAL MACHINES AND VPN

 

This is a quick short guide to anyone wanting to use VPN over a virtual machine, and also how to use TOR and VPN in a virtual machine.

 

REQUIREMENTS

1. Virtualization software such as:

 

Oracle VM Virtualbox (Free) https://www.virtualbox.org/

VM Ware Workstation (Proffesional Software) http://www.vmware.com/uk/products/workstation.html

Windows Virtual PC (Freeware but can only install systems for Windows XP and up) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702

 

These are the three most popular options for virtualization software. I personally recommend using Virtualbox if you don't want to pay a lot of money for VM Ware, although it is packed with features and is probably the most advanced virtualization software on the market, hence why it is used by professionals and large companies.

 

 

2. An ISO image of the operating system you'd like to use. If you want general purpose virtualization, such as testing applications, I recommend Windows. If you want to use TOR, refer to the TOR section down below.

 

3. A decent computer.

What you will be basically doing is running a computer inside your computer. Yeah I know, Inception, right? Anyway, you should have a decent computer for this, and I recommend minimum of 8gb of RAM. You should also have a decent CPU as it will also affect the performance of the virtual machine.

 

4. A VPN. If you are on this forum you should be using Air, but this should work with any properly configured VPN.

 

CONFIGURATION

I won't go through the set up and installation of a operating system in a virtual machine in this guide because there are plenty of resources out there that explain how to do this.

Make sure you are connected to your VPN on your host machine (The computer you are running the virtual machine on). Once you have your virtual machine configured, be it Linux or Windows or any operating system, the essential thing you need to do is switch your virtual machines network adapter to use NAT. It is absolutely essential that you do this, otherwise your true IP address will be used by the virtual machine. Bridged modes simply use your network adapter hardware directly, which reveals your real IP. The NAT (Network Address Translation) mode uses your host operating system's IP address, and if your VPN is configured properly it will mean the virtual machine is using the exact same VPN connection your computer is using.

 

USING TOR IN A VIRTUAL MACHINE

If you want to use TOR in a virtual machine, you have two options.

You can either use the TOR Browser like in a regular computer, running it on Windows or Linux, whatever your choice may be. I personally recommend using Tails, an operating system designed for anonymity and usage of TOR.

 

TAILS

 

Tails is a live operating system designed for anonymity and privacy, and is released under the GNU/GPL license. All of the source code of the applications that tails uses that are not taken directly from upstream Debian packages are available on their git repositories, they have a guide here: https://tails.boum.org/contribute/git/

 

The great thing about tails is that it is crammed with programs and features for anonymity, security and privacy. It has email clients, tools for public keys and GPG, disguising the operating system as Windows 8 if you want to use it in public places, instant messaging clients, and many, many more.

 

So now that you know what Tails is, you probably can't wait to get it. The best part is that it is a live operating system, and you don't need to install it.

 

Tails homepage: https://tails.boum.org/

 

They also made a great installation guide if you want to install Tails to a usb stick: https://tails.boum.org/install/

 

To use tails in a virtual machine, they have made a guide here: https://tails.boum.org/doc/advanced_topics/virtualization/virtualbox/

(The steps for virtualbox in Linux are pretty much the exact same as in Windows)

 

MAKE SURE YOU USE NAT IN THE TAILS VIRTUAL MACHINE

 

 

Hope you found this guide useful, and don't forget to send it to friends to help them use the internet privately, and securely

[TheDieselBoiler 5]

Also being the idiot that I am I obviously posted this in the wrong section. Could a moderator move this to the How-to's section please?

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

Also being the idiot that I am I obviously posted this in the wrong section. Could a moderator move this to the How-to's section please?

 

The How-To section is more or less a special section where guides are posted and moved when they are largely confirmed to work and to be of a good quality. They also need to have a certain "value" to the community, for example, when large groups of people have a need of it. Of course, doing guides about things you can already find in the forums elsewhere is superfluous unless they build on it and enhance it.

But generally it's not really a necessity to move threads anywhere since you can find anything by searching for it, regardless of the subforum they're in. To enhance on the chances people find your guide, add the tags "VM", "virtualbox" and "vmware" (without "") to your guide. Most people don't look for "virtual machine" when it comes to this but instead want to see results for "vm" or certain VM softwares.

 

Anyway, the community thanks you for the guide.

[LZ1 662]

Hello !

​Good effort! You've put out a guide pretty quickly and it's excellent you're willing to show others how it's done, regarding such important things as VMs, Tor & Tails :].

​Keep it up.

[LZ1 662]

I linked to your post in my latest guide by the way, if that's ok