ProtonVPN App setup for Wifi

User Support General
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I am trying to setup ProtonVPN. I have followed the steps in the guide ProtonVPN App 4.2 setup guide (I am using a Debian template instead of Fedora). The Qube name is proton and I have set it to provide network in the settings (note: in the Qubes Manager it says the Template is a TemplateVM, if that makes a difference) and NetVM is set to sys-firewall.

Within the proton Qube when I open Firefox ESR and when I go to ip . me it shows the VPN IP address as it should, so I know the VPN connection is active. To test other Qubes, I left the personal Qube set to sys-firewall and connected to ip . me, which showed my real IP. I then set the NetVM for personal to proton and attempted to connect to ip . me again, however nothing loaded. I also tried setting NetVM to sys-whonix and was able to connect to ip . me showing the tor IP address.

In the upper right corner of the screen I can see an icon for ethernet connection and when I hover the mouse over it it says “Ethernet network connection “VM uplink eth0” active VPN connection active”, which is odd as I am using Wifi, not ethernet (the icon is purple with a padlock if it matters). The wifi icon right next to it is red and when I left click on it and select VPN Connections → Add a VPN connection nothing is available.

I have not made any other changes other than what I have already described here and that were in the instructions in the setup guide as I am new to Qubes and although I have a good working knowledge of Linux I am rather confused about how all of this works. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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this is because the qube see a virtual ethernet network interface that is used by the qube to communicate with its netvm.

The only way to have proton vpn app to use its wifi feature would be to install the app in sys-net qube, which may not be a great idea.

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Thank you for your reply.

Could you explain why that may not be a great idea?

Also, would it be better/possible to create a new Debian qube, and use that for things I need the VPN for?

Thanks.

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basically, in Qubes OS security, sys-net is the worse part because it is exposed to the outside world, so it should never be considered as trusted.

Of course, it is totally possible to use it for your VPN purpose, I would say it is discouraged it is a balance between risks and benefits to evaluate.

once you have the VPN app running, assign it as the network provider for qubes you want to use the VPN and you are done :+1:

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