WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
NAME
wg - set and retrieve configuration of WireGuard interfaces
SYNOPSIS
wg [ COMMAND ] [ OPTIONS ]... [ ARGS ]...
DESCRIPTION
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.
COMMANDS
| listen-port | fwmark | peers | preshared-keys | endpoints |
allowed-ips | latest-handshakes | persistent-keepalive | transfer
| dump]
show { <interface> | all | interfaces } [public-
key | private-key
Shows current WireGuard configuration and runtime
information of specified <interface>. If no <inter-
face> 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 informa-
tion 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 speci-
fied, then several lines are printed; the first con-
tains 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>
Page 1 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)
WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
Shows the current configuration of <interface> in the
format described by CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT below.
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>]...] ]...
set <interface> [listen-
port <port>] [fwmark <fwmark>] [private-
Sets configuration values for the specified <inter-
face>. 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 speci-
fied, 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 argu-
ments 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" dis-
ables it. Otherwise it represents, in seconds, between
1 and 65535 inclusive, how often to send an authenti-
cated empty packet to the peer, for the purpose of
keeping a stateful firewall or NAT mapping valid per-
sistently. 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; set-
ting 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
Page 2 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)
WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
must be in the format described by CONFIGURATION FILE
FORMAT below, to the current configuration of <inter-
face>.
syncconf <interface> <configuration-filename>
Like setconf, but reads back the existing configuration
first and only makes changes that are explicitly dif-
ferent between the configuration file and the inter-
face. 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 (gen-
erated 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.
CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT
The configuration file format is based on INI. There are two
top level sections -- Interface and Peer. Multiple Peer sec-
tions may be specified, but only one Interface section may
be specified.
The Interface section may contain the following fields:
+o PrivateKey - a base64 private key generated by wg gen-
key. Required.
+o ListenPort - a 16-bit port for listening. Optional; if
not specified, chosen randomly.
+o FwMark - a 32-bit fwmark for outgoing packets. If set
to 0 or "off", this option is disabled. May be
Page 3 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)
WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
specified in hexadecimal by prepending "0x". Optional.
The Peer sections may contain the following fields:
+o 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.
+o 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 cryptogra-
phy, for post-quantum resistance.
+o 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.
+o 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.
+o 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 traf-
fic, 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 sec-
onds. 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.
CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT EXAMPLE
This example may be used as a model for writing configura-
tion 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
Page 4 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)
WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
[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
DEBUGGING INFORMATION
Sometimes it is useful to have information on the current
runtime state of a tunnel. When using the Linux kernel mod-
ule 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.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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
Page 5 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)
WG(8) (2015 August 13) WG(8)
between retries. If unset, the default is 15 retries.
SEE ALSO
wg-quick(8), ip(8), ip-link(8), ip-address(8), ip-route(8).
AUTHOR
wg was written by Jason A. Donenfeld For updates and more
information, a project page is available on the World Wide
Web
Page 6 ZX2C4 (printed 5/24/22)