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Installation Guide

Install on Linux

Run Arresti VPN on Linux via the OpenVPN command-line client. Tested on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, RHEL and Arch.

Step 1 — Install OpenVPN

On Linux, there are several ways to use OpenVPN. This guide uses the widely-supported open-source CLI openvpn package, but any OpenVPN installation or Network Manager that supports OpenVPN configurations will work. If you hit trouble, look up an OpenVPN installation guide specific to your distribution.

Use the appropriate command for your distribution:

  • Ubuntu / Debian: sudo apt-get install openvpn
  • Fedora: sudo dnf install openvpn
  • CentOS / RHEL: sudo yum install openvpn
  • Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S openvpn

Step 2 — Download an Arresti VPN connection profile

After OpenVPN is installed, you need a connection profile tied to your Arresti VPN account.

  1. Open a web browser.
  2. Go to the Arresti VPN downloads page: portal.arresti.com/downloads.php.
  3. Log in with your account credentials.
  4. Scroll down to the list of server locations and choose one.
  5. Save the resulting .ovpn file to your Linux system.

Step 3 — Manually start the connection

To start a connection profile manually, run:

sudo openvpn --config /path/to/your/configuration/profile.ovpn

For example:

sudo openvpn --config /path/to/AUSSydneyDirect.ovpn

You can verify the status of your connection at whatismyipaddress.com — the location shown should be the VPN exit, not your real one.

Optional: auto-login via the service daemon

To set up an auto-login connection that survives reboots:

  1. Place the client.ovpn file in /etc/openvpn/.
  2. Rename it to end with .conf. For example: sudo mv /etc/openvpn/client.ovpn /etc/openvpn/client.conf
  3. Enable the OpenVPN service to start at boot:

    systemd (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, RHEL):
    sudo systemctl enable openvpn@client
    sudo systemctl start openvpn@client

    SysVinit (older distributions):
    sudo service openvpn start
    sudo chkconfig openvpn on

  4. Reboot to apply changes: sudo reboot

After reboot, the auto-login profile will be picked up automatically. Verify with ifconfig — you should see a tun0 network adapter listed.

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