Operate an Awala VPN tunnel

Configure your website as an Awala VPN tunnel and earn $0.15 per gigabyte!

Diagram of the Awala VPN tunnel in the broader architecture

Sign up

To get started, you’ll have to sign up as an individual or organisation on our partners portal (to be released in early 2025), and undergo a screening process by Stripe Connect.

You’ll be able to add websites to your account as soon as you’re approved by Stripe.

Reverse proxy configuration

You basically need to configure a reverse proxy at a randomly generated path in your existing web server configuration file. For example, an existing Nginx server {...} block for example.com could host a tunnel under https://example.com/<random-path> with the following configuration:

location /<random-path> {
    proxy_pass https://singapore.vpn-shields.awala.app;

    # Enable WebSockets
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";

    access_log off;
}

We will provide the configuration for all major web servers.

Eligible traffic

We will pay the same rate for all the inbound and outbound traffic relayed by your tunnel. Specifically, we will pay for the payload in HTTP requests and responses, as well as the WebSockets messages. Overhead, such as TLS handshakes and HTTP headers, will be excluded from these calculations as we are unable to calculate it accurately.

Only traffic driven by legitimate Awala VPN clients will be eligible for payment.

Variable rates

We will pay a flat $0.15/GB for at least the first six months after the launch of Awala VPN.

Afterwards, the payout will vary by website, and we’ll offer between $0.10 and $0.15 per gigabyte, depending on factors such as:

Trivial or placeholder websites will be paid on the lower end of the scale, if accepted at all.

We will give tunnel operators a 30-day notice before the new rates come into place.

Requirements

Confidentiality

Tunnel operators MUST NOT disclose to any third party that they are operating an Awala VPN tunnel, except for third parties that are necessary to operate the tunnel.

Residency

We impose the following residency requirements for the safety of our users and tunnel operators. Note that these requirements only refer to the country of residence of the operator, not their citizenship(s) or nationality(s).

All parties involved in the operation of the server hosting the tunnel MUST reside in one of the eligible jurisdictions. In the case of an organisation, it MUST be headquartered in one of the eligible jurisdictions; additionally every individual or organisation with significant control over the organisation MUST meet these residency requirements, unless the organisation is a public company.

For the avoidance of doubt, this requirement applies to in-house staff and freelancers responsible for the operation of the server, as well as the hosting provider and any reverse proxy providers.

Examples of eligible operators include:

Examples of ineligible operators include:

US compliance

As a US-headquartered company, we are unable to accept any operators subject to US sanctions, embargoes, or other regulatory restrictions. This includes entities or individuals from regions that are under US sanctions, as well as those listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Technical requirements

Content requirements

The website MUST NOT host political, religious, or adult content. This is to prevent the website from being blocked by the censorship system (e.g. the Great Firewall of China), regardless of its use as an Awala VPN tunnel.

Eligible jurisdictions

Tunnels MUST be fully operated within the following jurisdictions:

The jurisdictions above were chosen based on their ratings on the WJP Rule of Law Index and Freedom in the World report.