Setup WireGuard VPN on Raspbian

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Introduction

I’m already using OpenVPN but heard only good things about WireGuard VPN. For my current project, I need a VPN connection to my home network. I do not want to mess with my currently working OpenVPN setup, so I tried to setup WireGuard VPN on Raspbian.

Installation

Start with updating your installed packages. Its especially important to install the raspberrypi-kernel-headers before the WireGuard installation.:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-kernel-headers

I’ll use pivpn as setup script. You can install it with curl piping the script to bash like this:

curl -L https://install.pivpn.io | bash

However, if you don’t trust that source and doesn’t want to execute it unseen, you can also check the script content first or download the script separately to your machine first.

I’ve followed now the installation steps which are already pretty good explained by others:

Compatible to pihole

What’s nice about this script is, that it will also detect installations of pi-hole running on the same machine.

I’ve used the script to setup WireGuard (as it also supports OpenVPN). I’ve selected the default port 51820 and created a port forwarding rule in my FritzBox router. After the installation completed, you’re asked to do a reboot.

WireGuard profile creation

Now we’ll create a new WireGuard profile using

sudo pivpn add

The script just asks for a profile name and will place the generated profiles in the users home under the config folder.

Setup on the client machine is similar. But instead of using the script for installation, we’ll use the version provided by the Debian repo. I’ve followed these instructions:

sudo apt-get install dirmngr
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main" | sudo tee --append /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver   keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 04EE7237B7D453EC
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver   keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 648ACFD622F3D138
sudo sh -c 'printf "Package: *\nPin: release a=unstable\nPin-Priority: 90\n" > /etc/apt/preferences.d/limit-unstable'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install wireguard

Testing the config

I’ve transferred the created config from the WireGuard host to the WireGuard client and ran

sudo wg-quick up  <ProfileName>

And it established really fast a connection. However, my problem was now that the SSH connection broke because all of the traffic to and from the client was going through the WireGuard VPN (like you would have used it for your phone when you’re in an unsecured WiFi and want to redirect all traffic through the VPN).

Luckily I was able to stop the connection by SSHing from the WireGuard VPN to the assigned IP of the WireGuard client and by using

sudo wg-quick down  <ProfileName>

The question is now, how can I configure WireGuard Client to just know the route through the VPN to resources in the host network or vice versa how I can configure the WireGuard Host to provide other machines in the network a route to the connected client…