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linuxserver/wireguard

​WireGuard® is an extremely simple yet fast and modern VPN that utilizes state-of-the-art cryptography. It aims to be faster, simpler, leaner, and more useful than IPsec, while avoiding the massive headache. It intends to be considerably more performant than OpenVPN. WireGuard is designed as a general purpose VPN for running on embedded interfaces and super computers alike, fit for many different circumstances. Initially released for the Linux kernel, it is now cross-platform (Windows, macOS, BSD, iOS, Android) and widely deployable. It is currently under heavy development, but already it might be regarded as the most secure, easiest to use, and simplest VPN solution in the industry.

Supported Architectures

We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker here and our announcement here.
Simply pulling lscr.io/linuxserver/wireguard:latest should retrieve the correct image for your arch, but you can also pull specific arch images via tags.
The architectures supported by this image are:
Architecture
Available
Tag
x86-64
✅
amd64-<version tag>
arm64
✅
arm64v8-<version tag>
armhf
✅
arm32v7-<version tag>

Version Tags

This image provides various versions that are available via tags. Please read the descriptions carefully and exercise caution when using unstable or development tags.
Tag
Available
Description
latest
✅
Stable releases with support for compiling Wireguard modules
alpine
✅
Stable releases based on Alpine without support for compiling Wireguard modules

Application Setup

During container start, it will first check if the wireguard module is already installed and loaded. Kernels newer than 5.6 generally have the wireguard module built-in (along with some older custom kernels). However, the module may not be enabled. Make sure it is enabled prior to starting the container.
If the kernel is not built-in, or installed on host, the container will check if the kernel headers are present (in /usr/src) and if not, it will attempt to download the necessary kernel headers from the ubuntu xenial/bionic, debian/raspbian buster repos; then will attempt to compile and install the kernel module. If the kernel headers are not found in either usr/src or in the repos mentioned, container will sleep indefinitely as wireguard cannot be installed.
If you're on a debian/ubuntu based host with a custom or downstream distro provided kernel (ie. Pop!_OS), the container won't be able to install the kernel headers from the regular ubuntu and debian repos. In those cases, you can try installing the headers on the host via sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r) (if distro version) and then add a volume mapping for /usr/src:/usr/src, or if custom built, map the location of the existing headers to allow the container to use host installed headers to build the kernel module (tested successful on Pop!_OS, ymmv).
With regards to arm32/64 devices, Raspberry Pi 2-4 running the official ubuntu images or Raspbian Buster are supported out of the box. For all other devices and OSes, you can try installing the kernel headers on the host, and mapping /usr/src:/usr/src and it may just work (no guarantees).
This can be run as a server or a client, based on the parameters used.

Server Mode

If the environment variable PEERS is set to a number or a list of strings separated by comma, the container will run in server mode and the necessary server and peer/client confs will be generated. The peer/client config qr codes will be output in the docker log if LOG_CONFS is set to true. They will also be saved in text and png format under /config/peerX in case PEERS is a variable and an integer or /config/peer_X in case a list of names was provided instead of an integer.
Variables SERVERURL, SERVERPORT, INTERNAL_SUBNET, PEERDNS, INTERFACE, ALLOWEDIPS and PERSISTENTKEEPALIVE_PEERS are optional variables used for server mode. Any changes to these environment variables will trigger regeneration of server and peer confs. Peer/client confs will be recreated with existing private/public keys. Delete the peer folders for the keys to be recreated along with the confs.
To add more peers/clients later on, you increment the PEERS environment variable or add more elements to the list and recreate the container.
To display the QR codes of active peers again, you can use the following command and list the peer numbers as arguments: docker exec -it wireguard /app/show-peer 1 4 5 or docker exec -it wireguard /app/show-peer myPC myPhone myTablet (Keep in mind that the QR codes are also stored as PNGs in the config folder).
The templates used for server and peer confs are saved under /config/templates. Advanced users can modify these templates and force conf generation by deleting /config/wg0.conf and restarting the container.

Client Mode

Do not set the PEERS environment variable. Drop your client conf into the config folder as /config/wg0.conf and start the container.
If you get IPv6 related errors in the log and connection cannot be established, edit the AllowedIPs line in your peer/client wg0.conf to include only 0.0.0.0/0 and not ::/0; and restart the container.

Road warriors, roaming and returning home

If you plan to use Wireguard both remotely and locally, say on your mobile phone, you will need to consider routing. Most firewalls will not route ports forwarded on your WAN interface correctly to the LAN out of the box. This means that when you return home, even though you can see the Wireguard server, the return packets will probably get lost.
This is not a Wireguard specific issue and the two generally accepted solutions are NAT reflection (setting your edge router/firewall up in such a way as it translates internal packets correctly) or split horizon DNS (setting your internal DNS to return the private rather than public IP when connecting locally).
Both of these approaches have positives and negatives however their setup is out of scope for this document as everyone's network layout and equipment will be different.

Maintaining local access to attached services

** Note: This is not a supported configuration by Linuxserver.io - use at your own risk.
When routing via Wireguard from another container using the service option in docker, you might lose access to the containers webUI locally. To avoid this, exclude the docker subnet from being routed via Wireguard by modifying your wg0.conf like so (modifying the subnets as you require):
[Interface]
PrivateKey = <private key>
Address = 9.8.7.6/32
DNS = 8.8.8.8
PostUp = DROUTE=$(ip route | grep default | awk '{print $3}'); HOMENET=192.168.0.0/16; HOMENET2=10.0.0.0/8; HOMENET3=172.16.0.0/12; ip route add $HOMENET3 via $DROUTE;ip route add $HOMENET2 via $DROUTE; ip route add $HOMENET via $DROUTE;iptables -I OUTPUT -d $HOMENET -j ACCEPT;iptables -A OUTPUT -d $HOMENET2 -j ACCEPT; iptables -A OUTPUT -d $HOMENET3 -j ACCEPT; iptables -A OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT
PreDown = HOMENET=192.168.0.0/16; HOMENET2=10.0.0.0/8; HOMENET3=172.16.0.0/12; ip route del $HOMENET3 via $DROUTE;ip route del $HOMENET2 via $DROUTE; ip route del $HOMENET via $DROUTE; iptables -D OUTPUT ! -o %i -m mark ! --mark $(wg show %i fwmark) -m addrtype ! --dst-type LOCAL -j REJECT; iptables -D OUTPUT -d $HOMENET -j ACCEPT; iptables -D OUTPUT -d $HOMENET2 -j ACCEPT; iptables -D OUTPUT -d $HOMENET3 -j ACCEPT

Site-to-site VPN

** Note: This is not a supported configuration by Linuxserver.io - use at your own risk.
Site-to-site VPN in server mode requires customizing the AllowedIPs statement for a specific peer in wg0.conf. Since wg0.conf is autogenerated when server vars are changed, it is not recommended to edit it manually.
In order to customize the AllowedIPs statement for a specific peer in wg0.conf, you can set an env var SERVER_ALLOWEDIPS_PEER_<peer name or number> to the additional subnets you'd like to add, comma separated and excluding the peer IP (ie. "192.168.1.0/24,192.168.2.0/24"). Replace <peer name or number> with either the name or number of a peer (whichever is used in the PEERS var).
For instance SERVER_ALLOWEDIPS_PEER_laptop="192.168.1.0/24,192.168.2.0/24" will result in the wg0.conf entry AllowedIPs = 10.13.13.2,192.168.1.0/24,192.168.2.0/24 for the peer named laptop.
Keep in mind that this var will only be considered when the confs are regenerated. Adding this var for an existing peer won't force a regeneration. You can delete wg0.conf and restart the container to force regeneration if necessary.
Don't forget to set the necessary POSTUP and POSTDOWN rules in your client's peer conf for lan access.

Usage

To help you get started creating a container from this image you can either use docker-compose or the docker cli.
---
version: "2.1"
services:
wireguard:
image: lscr.io/linuxserver/wireguard:latest
container_name: wireguard
cap_add:
- NET_ADMIN
- SYS_MODULE
environment:
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
- TZ=Europe/London
- SERVERURL=wireguard.domain.com #optional
- SERVERPORT=51820 #optional
- PEERS=1 #optional
- PEERDNS=auto #optional
- INTERNAL_SUBNET=10.13.13.0 #optional
- ALLOWEDIPS=0.0.0.0/0 #optional
- PERSISTENTKEEPALIVE_PEERS= #optional
- LOG_CONFS=true #optional
volumes:
- /path/to/appdata/config:/config
- /lib/modules:/lib/modules #optional
ports:
- 51820:51820/udp
sysctls:
- net.ipv4.conf.all.src_valid_mark=1
restart: unless-stopped
docker run -d \
--name=wireguard \
--cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
--cap-add=SYS_MODULE \
-e PUID=1000 \
-e PGID=1000 \
-e TZ=Europe/London \
-e SERVERURL=wireguard.domain.com `#optional` \
-e SERVERPORT=51820 `#optional` \
-e PEERS=1 `#optional` \
-e PEERDNS=auto `#optional` \
-e INTERNAL_SUBNET=10.13.13.0 `#optional` \
-e ALLOWEDIPS=0.0.0.0/0 `#optional` \
-e PERSISTENTKEEPALIVE_PEERS= `#optional` \
-e LOG_CONFS=true `#optional` \
-p 51820:51820/udp \
-v /path/to/appdata/config:/config \
-v /lib/modules:/lib/modules `#optional` \
--sysctl="net.ipv4.conf.all.src_valid_mark=1" \
--restart unless-stopped \
lscr.io/linuxserver/wireguard:latest

Parameters

Docker images are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively. For example, -p 8080:80 would expose port 80 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080 outside the container.

Ports (-p)

Parameter
Function
51820/udp
wireguard port

Environment Variables (-e)

Env
Function
PUID=1000
for UserID - see below for explanation
PGID=1000
for GroupID - see below for explanation
TZ=Europe/London
Specify a timezone to use EG Europe/London
SERVERURL=wireguard.domain.com
External IP or domain name for docker host. Used in server mode. If set to auto, the container will try to determine and set the external IP automatically
SERVERPORT=51820
External port for docker host. Used in server mode.
PEERS=1
Number of peers to create confs for. Required for server mode. Can also be a list of names: myPC,myPhone,myTablet (alphanumeric only)
PEERDNS=auto
DNS server set in peer/client configs (can be set as 8.8.8.8). Used in server mode. Defaults to auto, which uses wireguard docker host's DNS via included CoreDNS forward.
INTERNAL_SUBNET=10.13.13.0
Internal subnet for the wireguard and server and peers (only change if it clashes). Used in server mode.
ALLOWEDIPS=0.0.0.0/0
The IPs/Ranges that the peers will be able to reach using the VPN connection. If not specified the default value is: '0.0.0.0/0, ::0/0' This will cause ALL traffic to route through the VPN, if you want split tunneling, set this to only the IPs you would like to use the tunnel AND the ip of the server's WG ip, such as 10.13.13.1.
PERSISTENTKEEPALIVE_PEERS=
Set to all or a list of comma separated peers (ie. 1,4,laptop) for the wireguard server to send keepalive packets to listed peers every 25 seconds. Useful if server is accessed via domain name and has dynamic IP. Used only in server mode.
LOG_CONFS=true
Generated QR codes will be displayed in the docker log. Set to false to skip log output.

Volume Mappings (-v)

Volume
Function
/config
Contains all relevant configuration files.
/lib/modules
Maps host's modules folder. Only required if compiling wireguard modules.

Miscellaneous Options

Parameter
Function
--sysctl=
Required for client mode.

Portainer notice

This image utilises cap_add or sysctl to work properly. This is not implemented properly in some versions of Portainer, thus this image may not work if deployed through Portainer.

Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)

You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__.
As an example:
-e FILE__PASSWORD=/run/secrets/mysecretpassword
Will set the environment variable PASSWORD based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretpassword file.

Umask for running applications

For all of our images we provide the ability to override the default umask settings for services started within the containers using the optional -e UMASK=022 setting. Keep in mind umask is not chmod it subtracts from permissions based on it's value it does not add. Please read up here before asking for support.

User / Group Identifiers

When using volumes (-v flags), permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID and group PGID.
Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.
In this instance PUID=1000 and PGID=1000, to find yours use id user as below:
$ id username
uid=1000(dockeruser) gid=1000(dockergroup) groups=1000(dockergroup)

Docker Mods

We publish various Docker Mods to enable additional functionality within the containers. The list of Mods available for this image (if any) as well as universal mods that can be applied to any one of our images can be accessed via the dynamic badges above.

Support Info

  • Shell access whilst the container is running:
    • docker exec -it wireguard /bin/bash
  • To monitor the logs of the container in realtime:
    • docker logs -f wireguard
  • Container version number
    • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' wireguard
  • Image version number
    • docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' lscr.io/linuxserver/wireguard:latest

Versions

  • 10.01.23: - Add new var to add PersistentKeepalive to server config for select peers to survive server IP changes when domain name is used.
  • 26.10.22: - Better handle unsupported peer names. Improve logging.
  • 12.10.22: - Add Alpine branch. Optimize wg and coredns services.
  • 09.10.22: - Switch back to iptables-legacy due to issues on some hosts.
  • 04.10.22: - Rebase to Jammy. Upgrade to s6v3.
  • 16.05.22: - Improve NAT handling in server mode when multiple ethernet devices are present.
  • 23.04.22: - Add pre-shared key support. Automatically added to all new peer confs generated, existing ones are left without to ensure no breaking changes.
  • 10.04.22: - Rebase to Ubuntu Focal. Add LOG_CONFS env var. Remove deprecated add-peer command.
  • 28.10.21: - Add site-to-site vpn support.
  • 11.02.21: - Fix bug related to changing internal subnet and named peer confs not updating.
  • 06.10.20: - Disable CoreDNS in client mode, or if port 53 is already in use in server mode.
  • 04.10.20: - Allow to specify a list of names as PEERS and add ALLOWEDIPS environment variable. Also, add peer name/id to each one of the peer sections in wg0.conf. Important: Existing users need to delete /config/templates/peer.conf and restart
  • 27.09.20: - Cleaning service binding example to have accurate PreDown script.
  • 06.08.20: - Replace resolvconf with openresolv due to dns issues when a client based on this image is connected to a server also based on this image. Add IPv6 info to readme. Display kernel version in logs.
  • 29.07.20: - Update Coredns config to detect dns loops (existing users need to delete /config/coredns/Corefile and restart).
  • 27.07.20: - Update Coredns config to prevent issues with non-user-defined bridge networks (existing users need to delete /config/coredns/Corefile and restart).
  • 05.07.20: - Add Debian updates and security repos for headers.
  • 25.06.20: - Simplify module tests, prevent iptables issues from resulting in false negatives.
  • 19.06.20: - Add support for Ubuntu Focal (20.04) kernels. Compile wireguard tools and kernel module instead of using the ubuntu packages. Make module install optional. Improve verbosity in logs.
  • 29.05.20: - Add support for 64bit raspbian.
  • 28.04.20: - Add Buster/Stretch backports repos for Debian. Tested with OMV 5 and OMV 4 (on kernel 4.19.0-0.bpo.8-amd64).
  • 20.04.20: - Fix typo in client mode conf existence check.
  • 13.04.20: - Fix bug that forced conf recreation on every start.
  • 08.04.20: - Add arm32/64 builds and enable multi-arch (rpi4 with ubuntu and raspbian buster tested). Add CoreDNS for PEERDNS=auto setting. Update the add-peer/show-peer scripts to utilize the templates and the INTERNAL_SUBNET var (previously missed, oops).
  • 05.04.20: - Add INTERNAL_SUBNET variable to prevent subnet clashes. Add templates for server and peer confs.
  • 01.04.20: - Add show-peer script and include info on host installed headers.
  • 31.03.20: - Initial Release.
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