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Set Up WireGuard VPN on Debian

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What is WireGuard?

WireGuard® is a simple, fast, and secure VPN that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography. With a small source code footprint, it aims to be faster and leaner than other VPN protocols such as OpenVPN and IPSec. WireGuard is still under development, but even in its unoptimized state it is faster than the popular OpenVPN protocol.

WireGuard sets up standard network interfaces (such as wg0 and wg1), which behave much like the commonly found eth0 interface. This makes it possible to configure and manage WireGuard interfaces using standard tools such as ifconfig and ip. Currently, WireGuard is only available on Linux.

Configuring WireGuard is as simple as setting up SSH. A connection is established by an exchange of public keys between server and client. Only a client that has its public key in its corresponding server configuration file is allowed to connect. A WireGuard server’s configuration file resembles the following example:

File: /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
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[Interface]
PrivateKey = <Private Key>
Address = 10.0.0.1/24, fd86:ea04:1115::1/64
ListenPort = 51820
PostUp = iptables -A FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -A FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -D FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
SaveConfig = true

[Peer]
PublicKey = <Client Public Key>
AllowedIPs = 10.0.0.2/24, fd86:ea04:1115::0/64

In this guide you will learn how to:

Important
Do not use WireGuard for critical applications. The project is still undergoing security testing and is likely to receive frequent major updates in the future.

Before You Begin

Note
The GRUB 2 kernel is required for this guide. All distributions for all new Linodes now boot with the GRUB 2 kernel by default. However, if you are running an older distribution, you will need to check to see which kernel you are running. You can use the Update Kernel Guide to check your kernel version and change it using the Cloud Manager. Select GRUB 2 from the Boot Settings: Select a Kernel dropdown menu in Step 4 of Update Your Linode Kernel with Linode’s Cloud Manager.

Install WireGuard

  1. Add the WireGuard repository to your sources list. Apt will automatically update the package cache.

    echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable-wireguard.list
printf 'Package: *\nPin: release a=unstable\nPin-Priority: 150\n' > /etc/apt/preferences.d/limit-unstable

  2. Update your packages and install WireGuard and WireGuard tools. DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) will build the WireGuard kernel module.

    apt update
apt install wireguard-dkms wireguard-tools

    If successful, you’ll see the following output:

    wireguard:
Running module version sanity check.
 - Original module
   - No original module exists within this kernel
 - Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/4.9.0-9-amd64/updates/dkms/

depmod...

DKMS: install completed.
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.24-11+deb9u4) ...

Configure WireGuard Server

  1. Navigate to the /etc/wireguard directory and generate a private and public key pair for the WireGuard server:

    sudo umask 077
sudo wg genkey | tee privatekey | wg pubkey > publickey

    This will save both the private and public keys; they can be viewed with cat privatekey and cat publickey respectively.

  2. Create the file /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf and add the contents indicated below. You’ll need to enter your server’s private key in the PrivateKey field, and its private IP addresses in the Address field. Refer to the list below the example for more details.

    File: /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
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    [Interface]
PrivateKey = <Private Key>
Address = 10.0.0.1/24, fd86:ea04:1115::1/64
ListenPort = 51820
PostUp = iptables -A FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -A FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -D FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
SaveConfig = true

  • PrivateKey the server’s private key generated in above.

  • Address defines the private IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for the WireGuard server. Each peer in the VPN network should have a unique value for this field. Typical values are 10.0.0.1/24, 192.168.1.1/24, or 192.168.2.1/24. This is not the same as a private IP address that Linode can assign to your Linode instance.

  • ListenPort specifies which port WireGuard will use for incoming connections. The default is 51820. What you set here you will need to reference in your firewall settings later.

  • PostUp and PostDown defines steps to be run after the interface is turned on or off, respectively. In this case, iptables is used to set Linux IP masquerade rules to allow all the clients to share the server’s IPv4 and IPv6 address. The rules will then be cleared once the tunnel is down.

  • SaveConfig tells the configuration file to automatically update whenever a new peer is added while the service is running.

Set Up Firewall Rules

  1. Install UFW:

    sudo apt-get install ufw

  2. Allow SSH connections and WireGuard’s VPN port:

    sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 51820/udp
sudo ufw enable

  3. Verify the settings:

    sudo ufw status verbose

Start the WireGuard Service

  1. Start WireGuard:

    sudo wg-quick up wg0
    Note
    wg-quick is a convenient wrapper for many of the common functions in wg. You can turn off the wg0 interface with wg-quick down wg0

  2. Enable the WireGuard service to automatically restart on boot:

    sudo systemctl enable wg-quick@wg0

  3. Check if the VPN tunnel is running with the following two commands:

    sudo wg show

    You should see a similar output:

    user@debian:/# wg show
interface: wg0
  public key: Nrl2nVQxSwrKrvz6jQcrsziuVRPWT9N1Q8/yaQkAXUg=
  private key: (hidden)
  listening port: 51820

    You may need to install net-tools to run ifconfig. Use sudo apt-get install net-tools if needed.

    sudo ifconfig wg0

    Your output should resemble the following:

    user@debian:/# ifconfig wg0
wg0: flags=209<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,NOARP>  mtu 1420
        inet 10.0.0.1  netmask 255.255.255.0  destination 10.0.0.1
        inet6 fd86:ea04:1115::1  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x0<global>
        unspec 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  txqueuelen 1  (UNSPEC)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Configure WireGuard Client

The process for setting up a client is similar to setting up the WireGuard server. When using Debian as your client’s operating system, the only difference between the client and the server is the configuration file. In this section, you will configure a WireGuard client on Debian 9.

Note
For installation instructions on other operating systems, see the WireGuard docs.

  1. Follow the steps in the Install WireGuard section of the guide.

  2. Once you have installed WireGuard, follow the steps in the Configure WireGuard Server section. Replace the example configuration file with the example file below.

    File: /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
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    [Interface]
PrivateKey = <Client Private Key>
Address = 10.0.0.2/24, fd86:ea04:1115::5/64

    The difference between the client and the server’s configuration file, wg0.conf, is it contains its own IP addresses and does not contain the ListenPort, PostUP, PostDown, or SaveConfig values.

  3. Set up Firewall rules on your WireGuard client.

  4. Start the WireGuard Service.

Connect the Client and Server

  1. Stop the interface with sudo wg-quick down wg0 on both the client and the server.

  2. Edit the wg0.conf file on the client to add the server’s public key, public IP address, port, and allowed IPs.

    File: /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
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    [Peer]
PublicKey = <Server Public key>
Endpoint = <Server Public IP>:51820
AllowedIPs = 10.0.0.1/24, fd86:ea04:1115::1/64

  3. Edit the wg0.conf file on the server to add the client’s public key and allowed IPs.

    File: /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
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    [Peer]
PublicKey = <Client Public Key>
AllowedIPs = 10.0.0.2/24, fd86:ea04:1115::5/64

  4. Restart the wg service on both the server and the client:

    sudo wg-quick up wg0

  5. You can also add peers to the server from the command line. This information will be added to the config file automatically because of the SaveConfig option specified in the wg0.conf file.

    Run the following command from the server. Replace the example IP addresses with those of the client:

    sudo wg set wg0 peer <Client Public Key> allowed-ips 10.0.0.2/24,fd86:ea04:1115::5/64

  6. Verify the connection. The following command can be run from both the client or the server:

    sudo wg

    Regardless of which method you choose to add peer information to WireGuard, the Peer section appears in the output of the sudo wg command if the setup was successful.

    user@debian:/# sudo wg
interface: wg0
  public key: vD2blmqeKsV0OU0GCsGk7NmVth/+FLhLD1xdMX5Yu0I=
  private key: (hidden)
  listening port: 51820

peer: iMT0RTu77sDVrX4RbXUgUBjaOqVeLYuQhwDSU+UI3G4=
  endpoint: 10.0.0.2:51820
  allowed ips: 10.0.0.2/24, fd86:ea04:1115::/64

    This Peer section will be automatically added to wg0.conf when the service is restarted. If you would like to add this information immediately to the config file, you can run:

    sudo wg-quick save wg0

    Additional clients can be added using the same procedure.

Test the Connection

  1. Return to the client and ping the server:

    ping 10.0.0.1

  2. Once you’ve successfully established the ability to ping the server from the client, run the following command:

    sudo wg

    The last two lines of the output from running the wg command should be similar to:

        latest handshake: 1 minute, 17 seconds ago
    transfer: 98.86 KiB received, 43.08 KiB sent

    This indicates that you now have a private connection between the server and client. If you did not successfully ping the server from the client you will not see these lines. You can also ping the client from the server to verify that the connection works both ways.

Next steps

The process used in this guide can be extended to configure network topologies. As mentioned previously, WireGuard is an evolving technology. If you use WireGuard, you should monitor the official documentation and todo list for critical updates and new/upcoming features.

“WireGuard” is a registered trademark of Jason A. Donenfeld.

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