description: "[WireGuard®](https://www.wireguard.com/) 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."
[WireGuard®](https://www.wireguard.com/) 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.
We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker [here](https://distribution.github.io/distribution/spec/manifest-v2-2/#manifest-list) and our announcement [here](https://blog.linuxserver.io/2019/02/21/the-lsio-pipeline-project/).
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.
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.
Some hosts may not load the iptables kernel modules by default. In order for the container to be able to load them, you need to assign the `SYS_MODULE` capability and add the optional `/lib/modules` volume mount. Alternatively you can `modprobe` them from the host before starting the container.
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/wg_confs/wg0.conf` and restarting the container.
The container managed server conf is hardcoded to `wg0.conf`. However, the users can add additional tunnel config files with `.conf` extensions into `/config/wg_confs/` and the container will attempt to start them all in alphabetical order. If any one of the tunnels fail, they will all be stopped and the default route will be deleted, requiring user intervention to fix the invalid conf and a container restart.
Do not set the `PEERS` environment variable. Drop your client conf(s) into the config folder as `/config/wg_confs/<tunnel name>.conf` and start the container. If there are multiple tunnel configs, the container will attempt to start them all in alphabetical order. If any one of the tunnels fail, they will all be stopped and the default route will be deleted, requiring user intervention to fix the invalid conf and a container restart.
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.
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):
** 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.
Containers 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.
| `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. |
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.
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umask) before asking for support.
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`.
[](https://mods.linuxserver.io/?mod=wireguard "view available mods for this container.") [](https://mods.linuxserver.io/?mod=universal "view available universal mods.")
We publish various [Docker Mods](https://github.com/linuxserver/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.
Most of our images are static, versioned, and require an image update and container recreation to update the app inside. With some exceptions (noted in the relevant readme.md), we do not recommend or support updating apps inside the container. Please consult the [Application Setup](#application-setup) section above to see if it is recommended for the image.
Below are the instructions for updating containers:
### Via Docker Compose
* Update images:
* All images:
```bash
docker-compose pull
```
* Single image:
```bash
docker-compose pull wireguard
```
* Update containers:
* All containers:
```bash
docker-compose up -d
```
* Single container:
```bash
docker-compose up -d wireguard
```
* You can also remove the old dangling images:
```bash
docker image prune
```
### Via Docker Run
* Update the image:
```bash
docker pull lscr.io/linuxserver/wireguard:latest
```
* Stop the running container:
```bash
docker stop wireguard
```
* Delete the container:
```bash
docker rm wireguard
```
* Recreate a new container with the same docker run parameters as instructed above (if mapped correctly to a host folder, your `/config` folder and settings will be preserved)
We recommend [Diun](https://crazymax.dev/diun/) for update notifications. Other tools that automatically update containers unattended are not recommended or supported.
## Building locally
If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:
* **03.10.23:** - **Potentially Breaking Change:** Support for multiple interfaces added. Wireguard confs moved to `/config/wg_confs/`. Any file with a `.conf` extension in that folder will be treated as a live tunnel config and will be attempted to start. If any of the tunnels fail, all tunnels will be stopped. Tunnels are started in alphabetical order. Managed server conf will continue to be hardcoded to `wg0.conf`.
* **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.
* **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
* **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).
* **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.
* **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).
