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GeekGuy
- Jan 12
- 3 min read

How to install Outline VPN for personal use - Jan 2024

This tutorial will help you install a personal VPN by your own with ease.

First of all, let see a little bit about what Outline VPN is.

Personal VPN - Outline is a choice of the best.

Outline VPN is a free personal VPN that you can easily create, run and share access to any one.

You can find Outline VPN on their official page at getoutline.org or on Github Repositoy named Jigsaw-Code/outline-server.

How Outline VPN work?

Outline works when other VPNs are blocked and is resistant to sophisticated forms of censorship like network-based blocking or IP blocking.
Outline is more resilient because it is built using a protocol that is designed to be difficult to detect and therefore harder to block.
Privately share access to your server with a trusted group of people. Fewer people connected to your server means it is harder to detect and easier to remain private.

Why is Outline more difficult to block than a traddional VPN?

Outline uses a handshake-less, look-like-nothing protocol that is hard to identify, unlike standard VPN protocols that are easy to identify and block.
Private distribution of access. Unlike public VPNs, where a censor can easily access and list the servers it needs to block.
With Outline it’s easy to recreate a server if it gets blocked.

What information do Jigsaw collect?

Outline doesn’t collect personal information unless you opt in to provide it. Outline also doesn’t collect information about the websites you visit or with whom or what you communicate. To read more about the data Jigsaw do collect, check out this support article.

If you are creating or logging into an account with a cloud provider through the Outline Manager, we don’t obtain any information you provide to your cloud provider, such as your email address, name, billing information, and payment details.

Install Outline VPN server

Components - you need to know first

Outline VPN have 3 components:

Outline Manager: a software installed on your PC or laptop, this is a UI-ready software for you to manage your Outline VPN server instead of using CLI.
Outline VPN Server: this is the main server running on Linux (most common), Digital Ocean, GCP, AWS, Azure virtual machine. You will be introduced later in this article.
Outline VPN Client: a client VPN software installed on your devices, such as: Android, iOS, MacOS, Linux and Windows, of course.

Download & Install Outline Manager

You need to begin with the Outline Manager, download Outline Manager for specific OS:

For Windows: EXE file.
For Linux: AppImage file.
For MacOS: DMG file.

After downloading the Outline Manager installation file, please install it as usual.

If installation finished, you will see the UI of Outlime Manager like this image below.

How to install Outline VPN for personal use - Jan 2024

As you can see, on the first page, you should choose the cloud service where you will set up Outline Server.

Set up Outline Server

From your Outline Manager, choose one option that you will install, I choose Set up Outline anywhere, the right botton one.

Figure 2: Steps to install Outline Server

Follow the instructions shown on the UI.

Log into your server via SSH or directly on monitor.
Run the command:

sudo bash -c "$(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jigsaw-Code/outline-server/master/src/server_manager/install_scripts/install_server.sh)"

After running the command, you will ask some Yes/No question such as:
- Ask you to accept EULA.
- Ask you to install Docker, this is mandatory.
- You should accept this with Y character.
When the installation completed, you will have this information like this:

CONGRATULATIONS! Your Outline server is up and running.

To manage your Outline server, please copy the following line (including curly
brackets) into Step 2 of the Outline Manager interface:

{"apiUrl":"https://103.xxx.xxx.xxx:59618/HamisCNivORtdJlNdu3iEh","certSha256":"5D852170EDF8DC31261A16DB418FFC4C889F658A3052DDCDF2D9345B7F0CEE31"}


If you have connection problems, it may be that your router or cloud provider
blocks inbound connections, even though your machine seems to allow them.

Make sure to open the following ports on your firewall, router or cloud provider:
- Management port 59618, for TCP
- Access key port 60208, for TCP and UDP

After getting the information, you should note the following key:

Copy apiURL and CertSHA256.
Note the port for management and access key port to allow on firewall (depend you which cloud platform you use).

Configure Outline Manager

Back to Figure 2 in this article, you need to paste the copied apiURL and CertSHA256 into (2) text box.

Finally, press the Done button. You will get the result as below.

In this page, you could see your Data Transferred, Keys.

The keys here are used to connect from Outline VPN Client to Server. You can get the key with the Connect this device button after My Access Key line.

Figure 5: Connect this device pop-up.

You should shoose Connect This Device to explicitly show your key.

Copy your key and save it in the save place.

Install & Configure Outline VPN Client

Now you've already had your outline VPN key to connect, download Outline VPN Client on Apple App Store, Google Play Store or on official site:

After installing the client, paste your key into client, you now can connected to your Outline VPN Server.

Check your connection with:

WhatIsMyIPAddress.com
Oakla Speedtest.net

Enjoy it!