From Zero to Encrypted: Setting Up Your First PrivNet Server in 15 Minutes

Everything discussed so far in this series has been about why a self-hosted VPN is worth having. This post is about the fifteen minutes it actually takes to get one running, for anyone who has been meaning to try it but assumed it would take a weekend.

Step 1 — rent a small VPS (2 minutes)

Any mainstream VPS provider works — the cheapest tier is enough to start. You need root access and a public IP address; that is the entire requirement.

Step 2 — run the setup script (5 minutes)

PrivNet ships a provisioning script that installs WireGuard, generates the server's keypair, configures NAT and firewall rules, and sets up a deploy user for the portal to manage it remotely — one command, run once, on the fresh server.

Step 3 — register the server and create your account (3 minutes)

The script prints the values to register the server in PrivNet's dashboard. Create a free account — three devices included — and the server shows up as a place to add your first device.

Step 4 — add a device and connect (2 minutes)

Name a device, and PrivNet generates a fresh keypair and shows a QR code. Scan it with the official WireGuard app, toggle the tunnel on, and that device's traffic is now flowing through a server nobody else has access to.

That is the whole path — no enterprise sales call, no hardware to unbox. If the last nine posts made the case for why this is worth doing, this is the part where doing it stops being a someday project.