wg - Man Page

• Check status of currently active interfaces: sudo wg
• Generate a new private key: wg genkey
• Generate a public key from a private key: wg pubkey < path/to/private_key > path/to/public_key
• Generate a public and private key: wg genkey | tee path/to/private_key | wg pubkey > path/to/public_key
• Show the current configuration of a wireguard interface: sudo wg showconf wg0

tldr.sh

wg [ COMMAND ] [ OPTIONS ]... [ ARGS ]...

wg is the configuration utility for getting and setting the configuration of WireGuard tunnel interfaces. The interfaces themselves can be added and removed using ip-link(8) and their IP addresses and routing tables can be set using ip-address(8) and ip-route(8). The wg utility provides a series of sub-commands for changing WireGuard-specific aspects of WireGuard interfaces.

If no COMMAND is specified, COMMAND defaults to show. Sub-commands that take an INTERFACE must be passed a WireGuard interface.

show { <interface> | all | interfaces } [public-key | private-key | listen-port | fwmark | peers | preshared-keys | endpoints | allowed-ips | latest-handshakes | persistent-keepalive | transfer | dump]

Shows current WireGuard configuration and runtime information of specified <interface>. If no <interface> is specified, <interface> defaults to all. If interfaces is specified, prints a list of all WireGuard interfaces, one per line, and quits. If no options are given after the interface specification, then prints a list of all attributes in a visually pleasing way meant for the terminal. Otherwise, prints specified information grouped by newlines and tabs, meant to be used in scripts. For this script-friendly display, if all is specified, then the first field for all categories of information is the interface name. If dump is specified, then several lines are printed; the first contains in order separated by tab: private-key, public-key, listen-port, fwmark. Subsequent lines are printed for each peer and contain in order separated by tab: public-key, preshared-key, endpoint, allowed-ips, latest-handshake, transfer-rx, transfer-tx, persistent-keepalive.

showconf <interface>

Shows the current configuration of <interface> in the format described by Configuration File Format below.

set <interface> [listen-port <port>] [fwmark <fwmark>] [private-key <file-path>] [peer <base64-public-key> [remove] [preshared-key <file-path>] [endpoint <ip>:<port>] [persistent-keepalive <interval seconds>] [allowed-ips <ip1>/<cidr1>[,<ip2>/<cidr2>]...] ]...

Sets configuration values for the specified <interface>. Multiple peers may be specified, and if the remove argument is given for a peer, that peer is removed, not configured. If listen-port is not specified, or set to 0, the port will be chosen randomly when the interface comes up. Both private-key and preshared-key must be files, because command line arguments are not considered private on most systems but if you are using bash(1), you may safely pass in a string by specifying as private-key or preshared-key the expression: <(echo PRIVATEKEYSTRING). If /dev/null or another empty file is specified as the filename for either private-key or preshared-key, the key is removed from the device. The use of preshared-key is optional, and may be omitted; it adds an additional layer of symmetric-key cryptography to be mixed into the already existing public-key cryptography, for post-quantum resistance. If allowed-ips is specified, but the value is the empty string, all allowed ips are removed from the peer. The use of persistent-keepalive is optional and is by default off; setting it to 0 or "off" disables it. Otherwise it represents, in seconds, between 1 and 65535 inclusive, how often to send an authenticated empty packet to the peer, for the purpose of keeping a stateful firewall or NAT mapping valid persistently. For example, if the interface very rarely sends traffic, but it might at anytime receive traffic from a peer, and it is behind NAT, the interface might benefit from having a persistent keepalive interval of 25 seconds; however, most users will not need this. The use of fwmark is optional and is by default off; setting it to 0 or "off" disables it. Otherwise it is a 32-bit fwmark for outgoing packets and may be specified in hexadecimal by prepending "0x".

setconf <interface> <configuration-filename>

Sets the current configuration of <interface> to the contents of <configuration-filename>, which must be in the format described by Configuration File Format below.

addconf <interface> <configuration-filename>

Appends the contents of <configuration-filename>, which must be in the format described by Configuration File Format below, to the current configuration of <interface>.

syncconf <interface> <configuration-filename>

Like setconf, but reads back the existing configuration first and only makes changes that are explicitly different between the configuration file and the interface. This is much less efficient than setconf, but has the benefit of not disrupting current peer sessions. The contents of <configuration-filename> must be in the format described by Configuration File Format below.

genkey

Generates a random private key in base64 and prints it to standard output.

genpsk

Generates a random preshared key in base64 and prints it to standard output.

pubkey

Calculates a public key and prints it in base64 to standard output from a corresponding private key (generated with genkey) given in base64 on standard input.

A private key and a corresponding public key may be generated at once by calling:
   $ umask 077
   $ wg genkey | tee private.key | wg pubkey > public.key

help

Shows usage message.

The configuration file format is based on INI. There are two top level sections -- Interface and Peer. Multiple Peer sections may be specified, but only one Interface section may be specified.

The Interface section may contain the following fields:

• PrivateKey — a base64 private key generated by wg genkey. Required.
• ListenPort — a 16-bit port for listening. Optional; if not specified, chosen randomly.
• FwMark — a 32-bit fwmark for outgoing packets. If set to 0 or "off", this option is disabled. May be specified in hexadecimal by prepending "0x". Optional.

The Peer sections may contain the following fields:

• PublicKey — a base64 public key calculated by wg pubkey from a private key, and usually transmitted out of band to the author of the configuration file. Required.
• PresharedKey — a base64 preshared key generated by wg genpsk. Optional, and may be omitted. This option adds an additional layer of symmetric-key cryptography to be mixed into the already existing public-key cryptography, for post-quantum resistance.
• AllowedIPs — a comma-separated list of IP (v4 or v6) addresses with CIDR masks from which incoming traffic for this peer is allowed and to which outgoing traffic for this peer is directed. The catch-all 0.0.0.0/0 may be specified for matching all IPv4 addresses, and ::/0 may be specified for matching all IPv6 addresses. May be specified multiple times.
• Endpoint — an endpoint IP or hostname, followed by a colon, and then a port number. This endpoint will be updated automatically to the most recent source IP address and port of correctly authenticated packets from the peer. Optional.
• PersistentKeepalive — a seconds interval, between 1 and 65535 inclusive, of how often to send an authenticated empty packet to the peer for the purpose of keeping a stateful firewall or NAT mapping valid persistently. For example, if the interface very rarely sends traffic, but it might at anytime receive traffic from a peer, and it is behind NAT, the interface might benefit from having a persistent keepalive interval of 25 seconds. If set to 0 or "off", this option is disabled. By default or when unspecified, this option is off. Most users will not need this. Optional.

This example may be used as a model for writing configuration files, following an INI-like syntax. Characters after and including a '#' are considered comments and are thus ignored.

   [Interface]
   PrivateKey = yAnz5TF+lXXJte14tji3zlMNq+hd2rYUIgJBgB3fBmk=
   ListenPort = 51820
   
   [Peer]
   PublicKey = xTIBA5rboUvnH4htodjb6e697QjLERt1NAB4mZqp8Dg=
   Endpoint = 192.95.5.67:1234
   AllowedIPs = 10.192.122.3/32, 10.192.124.1/24
   
   [Peer]
   PublicKey = TrMvSoP4jYQlY6RIzBgbssQqY3vxI2Pi+y71lOWWXX0=
   Endpoint = [2607:5300:60:6b0::c05f:543]:2468
   AllowedIPs = 10.192.122.4/32, 192.168.0.0/16
   
   [Peer]
   PublicKey = gN65BkIKy1eCE9pP1wdc8ROUtkHLF2PfAqYdyYBz6EA=
   Endpoint = test.wireguard.com:18981
   AllowedIPs = 10.10.10.230/32

Sometimes it is useful to have information on the current runtime state of a tunnel. When using the Linux kernel module on a kernel that supports dynamic debugging, debugging information can be written into dmesg(1) by running as root:

   # modprobe wireguard && echo module wireguard +p > /sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control

On OpenBSD and FreeBSD, debugging information can be written into dmesg(1) on a per-interface basis by using ifconfig(1):

   # ifconfig wg0 debug

On userspace implementations, it is customary to set the LOG_LEVEL environment variable to verbose.

WG_COLOR_MODE

If set to always, always print ANSI colorized output. If set to never, never print ANSI colorized output. If set to auto, something invalid, or unset, then print ANSI colorized output only when writing to a TTY.

WG_HIDE_KEYS

If set to never, then the pretty-printing show sub-command will show private and preshared keys in the output. If set to always, something invalid, or unset, then private and preshared keys will be printed as "(hidden)".

WG_ENDPOINT_RESOLUTION_RETRIES

If set to an integer or to infinity, DNS resolution for each peer's endpoint will be retried that many times for non-permanent errors, with an increasing delay between retries. If unset, the default is 15 retries.

wg-quick(8), ip(8), ip-link(8), ip-address(8), ip-route(8).

wg was written by Jason A. Donenfeld. For updates and more information, a project page is available on the World Wide Web.

configuration.nix(5), systemd.netdev(5), wg-quick(8).