So I’ve been working on netcode recently. LAN/Local testing is only so effective, when the real internet is so laggy. Ideally, if I could be in 2 places at once, I could test the game under a more natural lagged internet.

So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve split in two and sent my other half down south… okay no. I recently set up an inexpensive unmanaged BuyVM VPS server (256 MB RAM, Dual Core) in Las Vegas running a trimmed down version of Ubuntu 14.04 Server. From where I’m at (2 hours south of Toronto), the ping between myself and the Las Vegas server is around 100ms.

Like always, here are my notes.

Setting up BuyVM Server as a PPTP VPN

Setting up, I started by “Reinstalling” a fresh Minimized Ubuntu 14.04 64bit Server. At the time, Ubuntu 14.04 wasn’t yet available as a pre-install. It was something I had to do after creating my account.

From that fresh install, I need to first do an APT update:

Next, install IPTABLES.

Follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PPTPServer

At the very end though, we’re setting the IPTables in “/etc/rc.local”. Do this instead:

The change is the first line. We’re not binding to an interface, but setting a source.

Done. Can now VPN using the PPTP protocol, and route all your internet traffic through it.

Reference: http://wiki.buyvm.net/doku.php/ipsec (combined the Ubuntu notes and this)

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To connect: Use the server IP address, login and password set in the secrets file.