bill0412/bandwagonhost-tutorial

This is a tutorial for Chinese citizens who desire to bypass the Internet Great Wall to see the real world and to have access to numerous high quality educational resources. This tutorial is based on Bandwagonhost and Outline, dedicated for a secure and fast VPN. No prior experience in Linux or Internet is required.

Step by Step Tutorial

Tip: 1. If you want an easier way (but less control over the service including the protocol) to bypass the GFW (Great Firewall), just click here and choose the right client for your device.
2. To be honest, there is a totally free and extremely fast service if do not mind the slightly embedded ad. (Click here to know more about u.zip.)
3. It should be noted that it will be much easier for you to setup your server and connect to it if you have already bypass the gfw using either one of the previous tips.

Part A: Purchase a server from BandwagonHost. (If you want a premium, click here and then go to step 5 directly, this kind of VPS supports 8K video play)

1. Open the official website of BandwagonHost in your web browser
(Tips: you may have no access to https://bandwagonhost.com/, just try https://bwh8.net/ out.)

2. Select your preferred VPS(Virtual Private Server) option. Here we choose the first option(10G VPS), which might be sometimes unstable.(Click here pay extra 10 dollars for premium (much more stable and less latency) and then Skip Several Steps)
(Cautious: Some of these options are charged by quater or month instead of year, so pay attention if you'd like to select one of the rest.)

3. Click on Order KVM or OpenVZ

4. Click on the Order KVM option in the first column of the table. (Our Outline server will be on an Ubuntu distribution of Linux)

5. Click on Add To Cart

6. Click on Checkout

7. Assuming you're not registered yet, fill in the forms to create an account and choose your payment method (Alipay is recommended for Chinese users)

8. Click on Pay Now

9. Scan the Alipay QR payment code and finish your payment on your mobile phone or directly on your PC

After the payment, you are now ready to set up the server.

Part B: Set Up an Outline Server on your VPS

After the payment, you should now be able to access the server you have just purchased.
Please follow the following steps to set up your server.

1.Login to your account
Click on the Client Area button at the upper right corner of the official website.

• Log in with your email address and password that have been previously registered for your account in part A, step 7 of this tutorial.
  Click on the Login button after you have filled in the forms.

2. Install the right Operating System on your server
Click on Services then My Services
Click on KiwiVM Control Panel Stop the server before reloading: Click on Stop
Click on Install New OS

3. Install new OS
Select Ubuntu-18.04-x86_64, which is at the bottom of the selection box. Then check the agreement box and finally left click Reload.
You should see something like below a few seconds later. The password and SSH port are important, so you may copy it or take a screenshot for later utility. (This information is also sent to you by email, but may take a while, so keep it yourself just in case)

4. Install PuTTy for your PC
If you use macOS, click here to access your server and configure it. Click here to go to the PuTTy download page. Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version(mostly 64-bit) version of PuTTy and install it.
After a quick installation, you are now ready to use the PuTTy to connect to the server.

5. Login to the server with PuTTy
*Go Back to Main controls and look up the IP address and SSH Port. * Run PuTTy.exe on your PC, then enter the IP address and SSH Port according to the Main controls Panel
(Note: 1. When you input your password, it is not shown explicitly, but recorded internally. So just hit the Enter key when you're ready to login.
2. Ctrl+V (Shift+Insert instead) for paste, Ctrl+C (Ctrl+Insert instead) for copy are NOT supported in shell.)

Login with the following customized information:
log in as: root
[email protected]'s password: (The one you copied or in the screenshot or you can find it in your mail box.)

Click on yes in the Alert Window and you are now ready to configure the server remotely and you should see:
(A successful login looks like this)

6. Configure the environment
It is time for us to copy and paste code! Interactive shell reacts responsively whenever we input a single line of code and hit the Enter key on our keyboard. So what you need to do is to enter the following code line by line and check if each one of these lines work similar to my description.

1. sudo -i
   You should get a new line as a response. Just continue to enter line 3.
2. sudo apt-get install curl
   (If you are using CentOS, click here.)
   After hitting the Enter key and wait for a few seconds, you should see a prompt. Enter y and the installation should continue.
   Go back to line 3 when you see this:
3. curl -sS https://get.docker.com/ | sh
   (If you are unable to use curl, go to line 2.)
   If you are working fine with curl. It may take quite a few minutes until you see something like this:
4. systemctl start docker
   The same response as the 1st line.
5. systemctl enable docker
   
6. systemctl status docker
   If you see the green"active running", you are safe to continue. Hit Q key directly

"7. Set up the Outline server
Enter the following line of code in the shell.
bash -c "$(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-server/master/src/server_manager/install_scripts/install_server.sh)" Select the green line(in the above picture) with your mouse cursor and the line is automatically copied to your paste board. Just paste, save and keep it in a .txt file for later use. (I highly recommend you keep this file on your PC and not delete it.)

Congratulations! Up til now, you have set up the server side of your VPN.

Part C: Connect to the server from multiple platforms

1. Install the Outline Manager on your PC
Download the Outline Manager(It is Open Source) in the repository (at the top of this web page).
Double click on the Outline-Manager.exe on your PC to start the quick installation of Outline Manager.
Wait less than a minute and you will see a the Outline Manager window, then click on GET STARTED. *When you see the Outline Manager Window below, copy and paste the code you copied in Part B, Step 7 and then click on DONE.

2. Connect current PC you are using to the server
Click on CONNECT THIS DEVICE Click on COPY
Click on INSTALL OUTLINE. Download and quickly install the Outline Client and then open it. (If you want a client on any Apple device, please click here.) In the Outline Client for Windows, click on ADD SERVER(If it does not work, please make sure you have the link starting with "ss" in your paste board.) Click CONNECT to connect to your VPS(If it does not work, you should try several time until a successful connection.)
A successful connection:

Congratulations! Now your PC is connected to the real world of Internet!

3. Connect from multiple platforms
Click on CONNECT A DIFFERENT DEVICE Copy the link and open it in your other devices.
You will be able to easily set it up on other devices just like in Step 2.

4. Occasionally share your Outline Server with your family and friends securely
Click on ADD KEY, you can either raname the key firstly or copy the generated link and share it with your friend directly.
And you will know every friends' data usage and can control their privilege with the help of the Outline Manager.

When You are confused (Updating)

1. When you are unable to download a software

• Try to shoot your troubles with Network Issue Solutions*

• Outline Client download link for Windows:
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-releases/master/client/Outline-Client.exe

• Outline Client download link for IOS:
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outline-app/id1356177741

• Outline Client download link for macOS:
  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outline-app/id1356178125

• Outline Client download link with long term support:
  https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-client/releases

• Outline Manager download link for Windows:
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-releases/master/manager/Outline-Manager.exe

• Outline Manager download link for macOS:
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-releases/master/manager/Outline-Manager.dmg

• If none of these above methods works, you may try one of those free limited VPNs during your setup process.

2. When your browser is unable to load a webpage

• If none of these above methods workds, you may try one of those free limited VPNs during your setup process.

3. If you use macOS and you're unable to install and use PuTTy

There's no macOS version of PuTTy. One of the easiest but less convenient way it to use the shell provided by BandwagonHost.
click on Root Shell - Interactive(in the control panel) on the left side bar, then click on Launch In the interactive shell, you are now able to login to the server and then configure the enviroment. But beware that you are unable to copy and paste but only type line by line. After executing the code in Part B, Step 6, you should now close the interactive shell and open Root shell - advanced from the left side bar, copy and paste the code in Part B, Step 7 and then run it. Wait a few seconds and you'll see the outcome, you can easily find a chunk of data wraped by the pair of curly brackets(included). Copy the data and save it for later use. (just like here)

4. macOS and IOS users are unable to download Outline client from Chinese Itunes Store or App Store The only way to fix it is to change the location of your Apple ID. Or alternatively, get a shared US Apple ID from the Internet or Taobao.

5. apt-get is not supported in CentOS
I don't recommend you to use CentOS, but in case you do, the counterpart of this line of code is:
sudo yum install curl
But typically, you should have embedded curl in your CentOS.

Network Issue Solutions(Updating)

• Refresh your browser(you may need to refresh several times) and wait(this may take several minutes).

• Use China Mobile hotspot created on your phone (when connecting your PC, since China Mobile typically has less censorship).

Free VPN list(Updating)

• For Apple Users: This is a good choice for those who use IOS as their main devices in China, since it is available on mainland Apple store: https://github.com/yinghuocho/firefly-proxy .
  (Tip: it is in fact much more stable than a normal Bandwagonhost server , so you may want to use this as your main option to bypass the GFW as an Apple user.)

• For Android and Windows Users: You can download the u.zip file and try out this VPN for Windows by yourself. It's secure, extremely fast and totally free, but with some ads since it's sponsored by Falun Dafa, which I suggest you to ignore while using it. (Alternatively, you can download the file directly from the link here.) The Android .apk file is also available from here).

Issues to be solved in this tutorial(Will be solved in later updates):

• Open UDP and TCP on port 22 for CentOS server.(CentOS support of this tutorial is not fully implemented)
• If you find issues not in the list, please feel free to contact me (Email: [email protected]) so that other users can enjoy better experience.

Donates

This is a free and open source tutorial maintained by Bill. If you like this tutorial or want more tutorials like this, and are willing to financially support me, I'd greatly appreciate it and be motivated.