easy-wg-quick

easy-wg-quick - Creates WireGuard configuration for hub and peers with ease

• Getting Started
  • Terraform
  • Prerequisites
  • Installing
• Usage
  • Sample output
  • Using generated configuration
• Fine tuning
  • Disabling external interface autodetection
  • Disabling external IP address autodetection
  • Disabling random port assignment
  • Disabling randomly generated internal network addresses
  • Setting interface's maximum transmission unit (MTU) size
  • Setting custom DNS
  • Setting custom client's AllowedIPs
  • Choosing firewall type
  • Choosing if PostUp/PostDown should enable/disable IP forwarding
  • Enabling IPv6
  • Enabling NDP proxy (instead of default IPv6 masquerading)
  • Redirecting DNS
  • Traffic control
  • Persisting configuration with systemd
• License
• Acknowledgments

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine. This machine (called hub) will act as VPN concentrator. All other peers connects to hub (as in a "road warrior" configuration).

Terraform

Terraform code for deploying easy-wg-quick in the Google Cloud Platform is available from the tf-gcp-easy-wg-quick repository.

Prerequisites

Install WireGuard for your operating system on local machine, router, VPS or container. This will be your hub.

As dependences /bin/sh, wg, wg-quick, awk, grep and ip commands should be available on hub. If ip is not available user is required to set EXT_NET_IF and EXT_NET_IP variables in script to external network interface name and IP address (or edit wghub.conf). Optionally qrencode can be used to generate QR codes for mobile applications.

Debian, Ubuntu

sudo apt install wireguard-tools mawk grep iproute2 qrencode

Fedora, RHEL, CentOS

sudo dnf install wireguard-tools gawk grep iproute qrencode

FreeBSD

sudo pkg install net/wireguard graphics/libqrencode

macOS

brew install wireguard-tools qrencode

Installing WireGuard tools (and modules)

This script requires only tools installed, but to use WireGuard module (or user-space implementation) is also required. Detailed install guide for various operating systems is available at wireguard.com/install.

Peers also requires WireGuard installed. Android and iOS are supported. OpenWRT clients are supported with UCI configuration fragments.

Installing

Just download the script and make it executable with chmod.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/burghardt/easy-wg-quick/master/easy-wg-quick
chmod +x easy-wg-quick

Note that you can use a short URL as well.

wget https://git.io/fjb5R -O easy-wg-quick
chmod +x easy-wg-quick

Or clone repository.

git clone https://github.com/burghardt/easy-wg-quick.git

Usage

Script do not require any arguments. Just run it and it will create usable WireGuard configuration for hub and one peer. Any sequential invocation creates another peer configuration within same hub.

./easy-wg-quick # 1st run creates hub configuration and one client
./easy-wg-quick # any other runs creates additional clients

Passing an argument to script creates configuration file with name instead of sequence number to help remembering which config was for which device. Following command will create wgclient_client_name.conf file.

./easy-wg-quick client_name

Sample output

No seqno.txt... creating one!
No wghub.key... creating one!
No wghub.conf... creating one!
WireGuard hub address is 10.13.1.140:51820 on wlp9s0.
Note: customize [Interface] section of wghub.conf if required!

Note: passing argument to script creates client configuration with supplied
      name to help remembering which config was for which device. If you
      didn't pass any argument you can still rename created file manually
      with command:
  mv -vi wgclient_10.conf wgclient_name.conf

No wgclient_10.conf... creating one!
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Scan QR code with your phone or use "wgclient_10.conf" file.
Updating wghub.conf... done!

Important: Deploy updated wghub.conf configuration to WireGuard with wg-quick:
  sudo wg-quick down ./wghub.conf # if already configured
  sudo wg-quick up ./wghub.conf
  sudo wg show # to check status

Using generated configuration

On hub configure WireGuard.

sudo wg-quick up ./wghub.conf

On peer scan QR code or copy wgclient_10.conf. To display QR code again use

qrencode -t ansiutf8 < wgclient_10.conf

Or use saved QR code

cat wgclient_10.qrcode.txt

To connect the whole network with a single WireGuard client running on an OpenWRT router, append generated UCI client configuration fragment to your router /etc/config/network file.

cat wgclient_10.uci.txt

Finally on hub check if everything works with sudo wg show.

interface: wghub
  public key: kbaG3HxSDz3xhqiTNXlo1fZkFa+V6oTl+w0cSAQKxwQ=
  private key: (hidden)
  listening port: 51820

peer: th8qYu0R0mgio2wPu1kz6/5OOgi6l8iy7OobK590LHw=
  preshared key: (hidden)
  endpoint: 10.60.1.150:37218
  allowed ips: 10.127.0.10/32
  latest handshake: 50 minutes, 22 seconds ago
  transfer: 32.64 MiB received, 95.24 MiB sent

Fine tuning

Disabling external interface autodetection

By default easy-wg-quick use interface with default routing done over it as external network interface of VPN hub. If autodetection fails or generation of configuration is done outside the hub (i.e. on air gapped laptop) user can set interface name in extnetif.txt file with command:

echo vtnet0 > extnetif.txt

Disabling external IP address autodetection

By default easy-wg-quick uses IP address of interface that has default routing done over it as external IP address of VPN hub. This might not be true if hub is behind firewall or NAT/PAT/masquarading is done. User can set prefered IP address in extnetip.txt file with command:

echo 192.168.1.2 > extnetip.txt

In case of NAT/PAT/masquarading one can try to use service like ifconfig.co for autodetection:

curl -4 ifconfig.co/ip > extnetip.txt

For IPv6 addresses, one can use curl's -6 switch. Brackets around IPv6 addresses are required:

sed -i 's/\(.*\)/[\1]/' extnetip.txt

Disabling random port assignment

By default easy-wg-quick use random port number from range 1025-65535. When using static port number is required for firewall configuration or other reasons user can set preferred port number (80 in this example) in portno.txt file with command:

echo 80 > portno.txt

Disabling randomly generated internal network addresses

By default easy-wg-quick use randomly generated internal network addresses for both IPv4 and IPv6. Custom network addresses can be set with the following commands.

echo "10.1.1."               > intnetaddress.txt   # for IPv4
echo "fd90:d175:8e43:705d::" > intnet6address.txt  # for IPv6

Default masks are /24 for IPv4 and /64 for IPv6.

Setting network masks

To change default masks set new masks in files named intnetmask.txt (IPv4) and intnet6mask.txt (IPv6).

echo 172.16.0. > intnetaddress.txt
echo /16       > intnetmask.txt
echo fd9d:9648:0841:0c6e:3d28:94d9:: > intnet6address.txt
echo /112                            > intnet6mask.txt

Setting interface's maximum transmission unit (MTU) size

To change the default interface's maximum transmission unit (MTU) size of 1280 bytes, write a new value into the file named intnetmtu.txt. WireGuard MTU should be between 1280 and 1420 bytes.

echo 1380 > intnetmtu.txt

Setting custom DNS

Setting IPv4 resolver address

By default easy-wg-quick uses 1.1.1.1 as it's internal DNS. You can use the command below to serve a custom IPv4 DNS to clients.

echo 8.8.8.8 > intnetdns.txt

Setting IPv6 resolver address

By default easy-wg-quick uses 2606:4700:4700::1111 as it's internal DNS. You can use the command below to serve a custom IPv6 DNS to clients.

echo 2001:4860:4860::8888 > intnet6dns.txt

Setting custom client's AllowedIPs

By default, the client's AllowedIPs variable is set to 0.0.0.0/0, ::/0, directing the whole client's traffic through the VPN connection. If you want to create a VPN split tunneling configuration, store required IP addresses ranges in the intnetallowedips.txt file:

echo '172.16.1.0/24, 172.16.2.0/24' > intnetallowedips.txt

Choosing firewall type

Firewall type is guessed from operating system. For Linux iptables and ip6tables are used. For FreeBSD and macOS basic pf NAT rules are implemented.

There are other firewall implementations to choose from. The following table compares the features of the alternative implementations.

File fwtype.txt contains name of firewall type. To override autodetection or disable any rules run one of the following commands:

echo iptables  > fwtype.txt  # to choose Linux netfilter
echo nft       > fwtype.txt  # to choose Linux nftables
echo firewalld > fwtype.txt  # to choose [firewalld]
echo ufw       > fwtype.txt  # to choose Uncomplicated Firewall
echo pf        > fwtype.txt  # to choose OpenBSD PF
echo custom    > fwtype.txt  # to include predefined commands from file
echo none      > fwtype.txt  # to skip any setup during wg-quick up/down

If fwtype.txt contains word custom content of commands.txt is included in the wghub.conf file.

Format of commands.txt is:

PostUp = echo "command 1"
PostUp = echo "command 2"
PostUp = ...

PostDown = echo "command 1"
PostDown = secho "command 2"
PostDown = ...

Choosing if PostUp/PostDown should enable/disable IP forwarding

Sysctl command syntax is guessed from operating system. Linux, FreeBSD (and macOS) are supported. As enabling IP forwarding is required for hub to forward VPN traffic to the Internet it is managed by PostUp/PostDown settings by default.

Some application (i.e. Docker) might require that IP forwarding is never disabled. In that case setting none in sysctltype.txt and managing IP forwarding settings elsewhere might be required.

File sysctltype.txt contains name of sysctl type. To override autodetection or disable any commands from being run use one of the following commands:

echo linux   > sysctltype.txt  # to choose Linux sysctl command
echo freebsd > sysctltype.txt  # to choose FreeBSD sysctl command
echo none    > sysctltype.txt  # to skip any setup during wg-quick up/down

Enabling IPv6

If a global unicast IPv6 address is detected on server tunnels will be created with inner IPv6 addresses allocated. This allows hub's clients to connect over hub's IPv6 NAT to IPv6 network.

If a global unicast IPv6 address is not detected, the existence of a file named forceipv6.txt can forcibly enable IPv6 support.

touch forceipv6.txt

To use outer IPv6 addresses (i.e. connect client to hub over IPv6) just set EXT_NET_IF and EXT_NET_IP variables in script to external network interface name and IPv6 address (or edit wghub.conf).

Enabling NDP proxy (instead of default IPv6 masquerading)

By default easy-wg-quick uses IPv6 masquerading to provide IPv6 connectivity to peers. This is easier to setup and require only single IPv6 global unicast address to work. On the other hand network address translation (NAT) has issues and limitations.

Neighbor Discovery Proxies (ND Proxy, NDP Proxy) allows end-to-end connectivity, but requires /64 network to be assigned to hub. From this /64 network, a subnetwork has to be divided (i.e. /112) and assigned to WireGuard interface.

To enable proxied NDP create file named ipv6mode.txt with proxy_ndp string.

echo proxy_ndp > ipv6mode.txt

When hub has 2001:19f0:6c01:1c0d/64 assigned, part of it can be assigned to WireGuard interface (i.e. 2001:19f0:6c01:1c0d:40/112).

echo 2001:19f0:6c01:1c0d:40:: > intnet6address.txt
echo /112 > intnet6mask.txt

Please note that NDP proxy mode in easy-wg-quick is supported only on Linux.

Redirecting DNS

DNS redirection might be required to integrate with services like Pi-hole or Cloudflare DNS over TLS. This could be achieved by using port 53 UDP/TCP redirection in wghub.conf.

PostUp = iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i %i -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 1.1.1.1:53
PostUp = iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i %i -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 1.1.1.1:53
PostDown = iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING -i %i -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 1.1.1.1:53
PostDown = iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING -i %i -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 1.1.1.1:53

When using IPv6 similar rules should be set independently with ip6tables.

PostUp = ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i %i -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 2606:4700:4700::1111:53
PostUp = ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i %i -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 2606:4700:4700::1111:53
PostDown = ip6tables -t nat -D PREROUTING -i %i -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 2606:4700:4700::1111:53
PostDown = ip6tables -t nat -D PREROUTING -i %i -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 2606:4700:4700::1111:53

Traffic control

Clients can benefit from setting traffic control rules in the wghub.conf. For example, setting an SFQ scheduler on the Linux hub is the simplest way to ensure the fairness of the download so that each flow can send data in turn, thus preventing any single client from drowning out the rest. In addition, SFQ will prevent increased latency and latency spikes (aka bufferbloat) during high bandwidth consumption.

PostUp = tc qdisc add dev %i root sfq perturb 10

On Linux clients setting the same should improve the fairness of upload flows.

Persisting configuration with systemd

Systemd may load configuration for both hub and clients using wg-quick.service. Note that also native support for setting up WireGuard interfaces exists (since version 237).

sudo cp wghub.conf /etc/wireguard/wghub.conf
sudo systemctl enable wg-quick@wghub
sudo systemctl start wg-quick@wghub
systemctl status wg-quick@wghub

License

This project is licensed under the GPLv2 License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

OpenVPN's easy-rsa was an inspiration for writing this script.