intro
The PIA installation tutorial is excellent, although it focuses only on Ubuntu for installing the standard Linux client. I won’t detail the installation process here, as there wouldn’t be any added value compared to the “official” tutorial.
There are only a few things left to say about installing PIA VPN on Linux:
Eddie, the AirVPN visual interface, is based on Mono and sometimes feels unresponsive. Eddie is subject to random crashes, although they do not happen very often:
Even if the AirVPN GUI crashes, active OpenVPN connections will not be interrupted.
Another common problem with Eddie is the disappearance of the “latency” values from the servers list – for no apparent reason. Active OpenVPN connections will stay alive, but connecting to a different VPN server without latency information makes no sense.
After disconnecting and restarting Eddie, the “latency” column will reappear – but restarting Eddie will interrupt the current connection.
AirVPN has a many options that no other VPN offers on Linux, for example whitelisting / blacklisting entire countries or specific servers, a “Network Lock” (kill switch) based on firewall rules, Tor integration and a home-brew OpenVPN version 3.
AirVPN’s visual interface for Linux (Eddie) offers more options than any other VPN GUI on this platform. Despite being a bit unstable and antiquated, Eddie is probably one of the best options for Linux users in 2021.
Without any doubts, NordVPN is one of the greatest VPN service provider worldwide, counting 6500 servers in 59 countries. If you didn’t alredy, check out my installation guide. Let’s see how NordVPN fares on Linux.
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account
Shows account information.
cities
Shows a list of cities where servers are available.
connect, c
Connects you to VPN.
countries
Shows a list of countries where servers are available.
disconnect, d
Disconnects you from VPN.
groups
Shows a list of available server groups.
login
Logs you in.
logout
Logs you out.
rate
Rate your last connection quality (1-5)
register
Registers a new user account
set, s
Sets a configuration option.
settings
Shows current settings.
status
Shows connection status.
whitelist
Adds or removes an option from a whitelist.
help, h
Display syntax for the given operation. If no operation was supplied, then
the general syntax is shown.
nordvpn cities
Usage: nordvpn cities [country]
Use this command to show cities where servers are available.
Example: ‘nordvpn cities United_States’
Press the Tab key to see auto-suggestions for countries.
Example 1. Connect to a recommended server
$ nordvpn connect
Example 2. Connect to a server in a specific country
$ nordvpn connect Australia
$ nordvpn connect Switzerland
$ nordvpn connect Greece
Example 3. Connect to a server in a specific city
$ nordvpn connect Sweden Stockholm
$ nordvpn connect Australia Sydney
$ nordvpn connect Japan Tokyo
Example 4. Connect to a server in a specific country using the country code
$ nordvpn connect US
$ nordvpn connect JP
$ nordvpn connect AU
Example 5. Connect to a server in a specific group
$ nordvpn connect P2P
$ nordvpn connect The_Americas
$ nordvpn connect Dedicated_IP
Example 6. Connect to a server in a specific group and country
$ nordvpn connect --group P2P Germany
Example 7. Disconnect from VPN
$ nordvpn disconnect
Example 8. Set a protocol
$ nordvpn set protocol UDP
$ nordvpn set protocol TCP
Example 9. Enable Kill Switch
$ nordvpn set killswitch enabled
Example 10. Enable CyberSec
$ nordvpn set cybersec enabled
Example 11. Enable auto-connect
$ nordvpn set autoconnect enabled
Example 12. Enable auto-connect to specific country or city
$ nordvpn set autoconnect enabled
$ nordvpn set autoconnect enabled Australia
$ nordvpn set autoconnect enabled Sweden Stockholm
Example 13. Enable obfuscation
$ nordvpn set obfuscate enabled
Example 14. Enable notifications
$ nordvpn set notify enabled
Example 15. Change technology
$ nordvpn set technology NordLynx
$ nordvpn set technology OpenVPN
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