Can you use GPT to install WireGuard VPN on a VPS server?

Artificial intelligence has been a major talking point over the last few months with the field progressing more and more with each day.

AI currently saves time and makes things much easier, allowing for the automatization of certain tedious, boring and repetitive tasks while also changing our workflow for the better. Not only that, but AI also helps substantially when it comes to finding information and detailed guides, which can be particularly useful in the field of information technology, programming and system administration.

Due to this, we wanted to check out whether it would be possible to use AI to set up and configure software on a Linux server without having any prior knowledge in system management.

For this experiment we chose to explore whether we could use GPT-3.5 to create a personal WireGuard VPN server from one of our cloud VPS servers. While we already have a WireGuard VPS template that can install the software on your server with just a few clicks, we wanted to test out the capabilities and limitations of AI when it comes to building and hosting a private VPN on your own server.

So, will ChatGPT be able to set up everything for us? Let’s find out!

AI & server environment characteristics

Before we proceed to conducting our experiment, it is important to share some information regarding the testing environment.

For the sake of our experiment, we will be using the latest free version of OpenAI - GPT-3.5. We will also be utilizing a cloud VPS server with Ubuntu 22.04 as its operating system.

The outcome that we are going to be aiming for is to see whether GPT will be able to generate a WireGuard VPN installation script that we can use to set up the software on our server.

Writing the WireGuard VPN prompt

As you might be aware, in order to get the best results from your AI friend, you need to give the model a very well-written and detailed prompt (while also crossing your fingers that it will actually be able to understand your query). This will ensure that you will get the best results immediately without having to engage in more meticulous explanations afterwards.

The prompt that we will be using for our experiment is:

I am running a VPS server with Ubuntu 22. I want to install WireGuard VPN on it. The purpose of this VPN will be to tunnel the traffic from my machine to the Internet. Give me detailed instructions and commands on how to install the server. Then help me install this VPN on my Ubuntu machine using the Terminal.

Letting GPT generate the installation steps

After submitting our prompt, we did have to wait for a bit in order for GPT to process all of the information. Regardless, after a few seconds, the AI returned a very detailed answer, giving us precise instructions on how to set up everything.

While the instructions did seem clear and correct at a first glance, the purpose of this experiment was to check whether executing them in the exact same order would result in successfully installing the WireGuard VPN software on our VPS server.

Putting GPT’s answer to the test

After carefully examining each instruction, we were ready to proceed to executing the commands. The results were a resounding success! While it was important to make sure that we didn’t mix the public and private keys of the server and the peers, we were able to run the commands as they were and everything worked perfectly!

The software was successfully installed, it was running and the traffic was being routed through the server!

However, while we did see that it is possible to utilize AI to manage a server, it is important to remember that the whole artificial intelligence field is still quite new and mistakes are bound to happen. Sometimes, you might get results that don’t immediately work, but that is still okay. What is important here is that you now have the option and the capability to give AI some commands, ask it a question or paste in an error that you can’t really deal with and it can try and answer your query or debug the issue for you!

AI is incredibly useful in IT

Overall, as our experiment shows, AI with ChatGPT in particular, can be extremely beneficial for the field of information technology if utilized appropriately as it can be a powerful tool that completely changes the way in which we tackle problems. It can save up a lot of time, giving you direct instructions or answers to your problems that you could otherwise spend hours trying to find on the Internet.

The results from our experiment also show that you don’t need to be a technical guru in order to manage your server. As evident from our prompt, we gave GPT nothing more than our system characteristics, the software that we want to install and the reason why we want to install it on our server. We simply followed the instructions and got a working private VPN server in a matter of minutes, further proving the point that AI can save time and help those who don’t have experience in the given field.

Just make sure that if using any AI model, not only GPT, everything works as it should as sometimes you might get misleading information due to the fact that this technology is still new and in development.