I am currently developing an app that will need to talk to a server using a REST API and likely other techniques of communication (videos, images, etc – not sure how I am doing that yet – fairly new to app development). Anyway, I was wondering if there is a way to not expose the server publicly to the internet and instead route any app traffic through a VPN service that only runs when the app is open / being used to be less intrusive. I would rather not users have to automatically restart the service, etc or have any access to it with the app handling all these tasks. The only issue is the app may be occasionally used in areas with less than ideal service.

If anyone has any ideas, tips/tricks or tutorial videos that match what I am looking for please feel free to share. I have been looking but don’t know how to word what I am looking for and end up watching videos that are irrelevant. Also if anyone has good ways of being able to transfer files to and from the server using HTTP let me know!

Thanks all!