Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access is a subscription-based VPN service.

Note: In 2019, PIA merged with Kape Technologies, and this event has been surrounded by a lot of controversy, especially via reddit posts. However, since the merger, the following improvements have been made to the PIA infrastructure:

• All PIA applications got released as open source: https://github.com/pia-foss
• WireGuard got added to the VPN servers and VPN Apps
• VPN servers got migrated from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to Arch Linux
• All VPN servers now are encrypted via dm-crypt, following advice from the Arch Linux developers
• All VPN services now run in memory via ramdisk

Manual

Note:

• Disable ipv6 since it is not supported by PIA.[1]
• Ensure you are using PIA's DNS servers, listed on their website.

NetworkManager applet approach

Installation

Download OpenVPN configuration files from PIA. Extract the ZIP file to a place in your user home directory or elsewhere that is memorable for future access. It is worth noting that even when WireGuard can be used on the Linux binary and on the app, PIA has yet to provide WireGuard files for configuration. In other words, only OpenVPN can be used when using the NetworkManager approach.

Install and configure NetworkManager along with the NetworkManager applet and OpenVPN plugin.

Configuration

1. Right click on the NetworkManager applet from your desktop environment and click Edit Connections. Click the Plus sign in the bottom left corner of the Network Connections window that appears.
2. When you choose a connection type, click the drop-down menu and scroll all the way down until you reach "Import a saved VPN configuration". Select that option. Now, click Create.
3. Navigate to the directory you extracted all of the OpenVPN files to earlier, then open one of the files from that folder. Generally speaking, you will want to open the file that is associated with the connection you specifically want.
4. After you have opened one of the OpenVPN files, the window that appears should be "Editing <connection type>". Type in your Username and Password that you received from Private Internet Access. There is an icon in the password box indicating user permission of the credentials; change the settings as you wish.
5. Now, click Advanced. Next to "Use LZO data compression", click the drop-down menu to select "adaptive" and next to "Set virtual device type", click the menu and make sure "TUN" is selected.
6. Next, go to the security tab and select as cipher "AES-128-CBC" and as HMAC Authentication "SHA-1".
7. Click the OK button at the bottom left of the window to save this change.
8. Go to the "IPv6 Settings" tab and select for "Method" "Ignore" since PIA blocks IPv6 addresses [2].
9. Click Save at the bottom right of the "Editing <connection type>" window.

Usage

Left click on the NetworkManager applet. There is a VPN Connections menu. Inside it should be the VPN connection you saved. Click on it to connect to Private Internet Access.

When a gold lock has appeared over the NetworkManager applet, you are successfully connected to Private Internet Access. Visit Private Internet Access and confirm that you are connected by referring to the status message at the top of their homepage.

Note: If the VPN asks for a password, and you would like to avoid entering the password each time you attempt to connect, be sure to click the icon in the password box as noted previously regarding permission of credentials and change it to all users.

OpenVPN command line approach

Installation

Download OpenVPN configurations from PIA. Unzip the file and move all files to /etc/openvpn/client. Ensure the files have root as the owner.

Tip: To be able to use OpenVPN#systemd service configuration (e.g systemctl start openvpn-client@<config>), rename the all the files and replace .opvn extension with .conf and replace spaces in configuration file names with underscores.

Usage

See OpenVPN#Starting OpenVPN.

Tip: To automatically login, append the name of the file containing your username and password immediately after auth-user-pass in the configuration file(s). See this option in openvpn(8)for more information.

To test to see if you have successfully connected to the VPN, see this article which recommends the following four tools:

• DNS Leak
• IPv6 Leak
• Speed Test
• WebRTC

Automatic

Official installation script

Private Internet Access has an installation script that sets up NetworkManager for use with the VPN. Download the script here and then run to set up.

Official Linux client

Private Internet Access now has an official client for Linux with support for Arch. Download the client from this page, unzip the file (e.g. pia-v81-installer-linux.tar.gz) and run the installation script (.e.g. # ./pia-v81-installer-linux.sh).

Packages

• piavpn-bin — Automates the official installer

|| piavpn-bin^AUR

• Private Internet Access/AUR — Installs profiles for NetworkManager, ConnMan, and OpenVPN

|| private-internet-access-vpn^AUR

vopono

vopono is a tool to run specific applications via a VPN connection with temporary network namespaces. Automatic configuration generation is supported for PrivateInternetAccess.

It includes kill switch support by default, and support for forwarding and proxying ports from the network namespace to the host so you can run daemons and servers via the VPN whilst the rest of the system is unaffected.

Tips and tricks

Internet "kill switch"

The following iptables rules only allow network traffic through the tun interface, with the exception that traffic is allowed to PIA's DNS servers and to port 1197, which is used in establishing the VPN connection:

/etc/iptables/iptables.rules

:INPUT DROP [0:0]
:FORWARD DROP [0:0]
:OUTPUT DROP [0:10]
-A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i tun+ -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -d 209.222.18.222/32 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -d 209.222.18.218/32 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 1197 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -o tun+ -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-net-unreachable
COMMIT

This ensures that if you are disconnected from the VPN unknowingly, no network traffic is allowed in or out.

If you wish to additionally access devices on your LAN, you will need to explicitly allow them. For example, to allow access to devices on 192.0.0.0/24, add the following two rules (before any REJECT rule):

-A INPUT -s 192.168.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -d 192.168.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT

Additionally, the above rules block the ICMP protocol, which is probably not desired. See this thread for potential pitfalls of using these iptables rules as well as more details.

Setting PIA DNS

If you find that Network Manager is controlling your host's DNS settings, and therefore your host cannot resolve any address, you will have to manually set the DNS server and attributes. You should note a symbolic link when running the following command:

ls -l /etc/resolv.conf

Remove the symbolic link with rm /etc/resolv.conf Then create a new /etc/resolv.conf and add the following:

/etc/resolv.conf 

nameserver 209.222.18.222
nameserver 209.222.18.218

Next regenerate resolvconf by typing:

# resolvconf -u

Finally make the file immutable so no other application can modify it:

chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

Troubleshooting

I cannot connect to OpenVPN using PIA manager, or OpenVPN does not work

PIA manager still uses OpenVPN under the hood, so even if you do not directly use one of the OpenVPN methods, you still need it. Firstly, check that it is installed. If you used one of the installation scripts, this should be done for you.

If you are getting errors like #<Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - connect(2) for "127.0.0.1" port 31749>, that probably means TAP/TUN is not currently running. Either your kernel does not have it, in which case install a kernel which does (or compile a fresh one), or it is not currently running, in which case it needs to be started:

# modprobe tun