Step by step setting up a VPN server
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This tutorial aims to show how quick and easy is to deploy your VPN server using defguard.
This tutorial is also availabe as a video:
We assume you have:
a server with a public IP (and you know what that IP address is and to which interface it's assigned) - in this example it's: 185.33.37.51
you have a domain name and know how to assign IP and manage subdomains, in our example:
defguard main url will be my-server.defguard.net (and the subdomain is pointed to 185.33.37.51)
defguard enrollment service that will enable to easy configure Desktop Clients just with one token is: enroll.defguard.net (this subdomain also points to 185.33.37.51)
server is Debian/Ubuntu-based
If you have a firewall, we assume you have open ports (if not below we will show you how to enable and secure your server):
443 - in order to expose both defguard & enrollemnt service - but also to automatically issue for these domains SSL Certificates (which the installer script does)
50555 - on this port the WireGuard VPN server will be listning for incoming connections from clients
Deployment is really easy and will be done automatically if you follow these steps.
There are multiple ways to install defguard tailored to your network & infrastructure - in fact, defguard as a VPN server is one of the few to support secure deployments with network segmentation and secure communication, but for the purpose of this tutorial we will do the easiest setup and install all components on this server using docker & docker-compose. The installation process will also automatically configure and deploy all your services and issue SSL certificates.
To do so just execute by root this simple command and follow the instructions:
In this example we are answering the questions with the following answers:
When finished you should see the following message:
And voila! It was that easy!
When you log in to your instance with user admin and the password that was generated for you, you should see that the VPN gateway is connected:
No go to defguard Web UI (in this example: https://my-server.defguard.net) and go to My Profile and click on Add Device:
Then choose Defguard Client Remote Desktop Activation - which will easly configure your Desktop client:
Defguard will show what URL (which is - as you see - your enrollment service URL) and token to paste to your desktop client:
You can easily copy those with buttons provided in defguard, and paste to your desktop client.
In desktop client click on _+ Add instance _ and provide the URL and token:
After that, the client will ask you to name your device (however you like), after that click finish:
The client will instantly show your defguard instance and the VPN (we named Example):
Also, in defguard you should see in your profle, that the client is configured and visible (for now - no details of IPs, etc - will automaticaly show details when you connect with your client):
Now let's click Connect and see if the VPN works, the best way to do so, is to open a terminal app and ping the VPN server address. Also to see nice statistics, choose in the client menu from Grid view (which is nice if you have multiple VPNs) the option Detailed view:
Now let's test if the VPN network is accessible. To do so, let's ping the VPN gateway internal IP: 10.22.33.1
As an administrator, you will probably be happy to see this - defguard VPN dashboard:
The most common purpose to setup your own VPN is to provide you (and your users - defguard supports multiple users!) anonimity and privacy when accessing public internet.
It's great for every day use (if you want to hide your real IP/location) or for example to encrypt all your traffic when your are in a public location - like beeing on Wi-Fi in a coffee shop, hotels, etc. - since most if not all those places do not provide encrypted Wi-Fi (just open hotspots).
So defguard as a VPN service is one thing, but we need to do few commands on the server, to enable routing all traffic through this server and your VPN. For your convenience those we will explain in detail.
First of all we need a simple and easy way to manage firewall. In order to do so on Debian install UFW (it's automatically installed on Ubuntu):
Now let's enable on the firewall rules that provide packet forwarding (from your VPN to the Internet and vice versa).
Edit the /etc/default/ufw file to enable default policies for packet forwarding to ACCEPT
Edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file to enable pocket forwarding in the kernel:
We know that VPN network is 10.22.33.0/24 now we need to be sure what interface has the public IP (in our case: 185.33.37.51) - let's figure it out with this command:
So, our public interface is: ens18
Now just add the following to /etc/ufw/before.rules just before the filter rules:
Typical ufw configuration is that INPUT traffic is disabled, so we need to open ports for our WEB and WireGuard gateway:
On Ubuntu, UFW is enabled by default, but on Debian it has to be enabled manually:
On Ubuntu, we need to reload the configuration:
Let's check the UFW configuration, should look like this:
Defguard is the only (known to us) WireGuard client that during connection provides a choice to route all your traffic through the VPN. Just (before connecting) choose the option: Allow all traffic and click connect!
This is very usefull, since some of the times you just want to be connected to your VPN to have the server/VPN networks accessible, and sometimes (like in the scenarious mentioned before) you want to hide and encrypt your traffic.
We put a lot! of effort in development, testing and documentation - to make difficult things like security, VPN easy and good looking. So for now, we kindly ask you to:
and spread the word about defguard however you like!
have installed the and (from our experience it's better to use the official Docker Engine then docker shipped with distro packages - but this should also work with distro packages) and have
VPN network will be: 10.22.33.0/24 - but you can assign and use it in this tutorial - we will name it Example
Download the latest client from: and install it - which is (during writing this article) version 0.1.1.
If you would like to have multiple VPN locations -
Now we need to configure firewall , so that the server will "translate/masq" VPN traffic behind its public IP. In order to do that, we need to add rules to MASQUERADE VPN network behind the public interface of the sever.
From version 1.3.0, gateway can automatically apply masquerade to traffic on all interfaces without the need for manual configuration. Refer to for details. If you use this feature, you can skip the following manual masquerade setup step.
In order to check if everything works, let's visit a website - that will show our public IP. If everything went smootly, you should see your VPN server public IP (which in our example is: 185.33.37.51):
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