Files
netbird/management
mlsmaycon 0f777152d9 [management,proxy] Enforce custom domain validation and scope claims per account
A custom domain row was created and bound to a live service whether or not
its CNAME ownership check ever succeeded. Validated was computed once, stored,
and read only by the dashboard listing, so an account that never proved DNS
control still had its hostname routed and a certificate ordered for it. The
domain string was also claimed globally, with no expiry, so an abandoned
unvalidated row blocked that name for every other account permanently.

Cluster derivation now matches a custom domain only when it is validated, and
reports "domain is not validated" so the API tells the caller what to fix.
Service updates no longer fall back to the previously derived cluster when
derivation fails, which was a way around the same check.

Claims carry a claimed_at date and are evicted after 24h without validation.
Uniqueness is now per (account_id, domain); the global constraint is dropped
and replaced by a manager-side rule that only one account may hold a validated
row for a name. That matches what the check actually proves: control of the
zone, not the identity of the requester, so the first account to validate owns
the name and a later one is refused. Creation pre-checks both cases and returns
AlreadyExists without naming the holding account.

An hourly job re-checks validated domains and, after three consecutive failed
lookups, marks them unvalidated and restarts their claim window, so a domain
whose DNS moved away stops being served and eventually frees the name. Custom
domains are capped per account because each one becomes an ACME order against
issuance rate limits shared by every account on the cluster.

ProxyMapping carries the verdict and the proxy refuses to set up routes, auth,
or certificate management without it, so the domain cannot be served if the
management-side gate is ever regressed. This makes management the required
first upgrade: a proxy on this version drops mappings from an older management
that does not set the field.

The migration drops the old constraint before AutoMigrate (dropping it rebuilds
the table on SQLite, discarding its indexes) and backfills claimed_at from the
upgrade time, so pre-existing unvalidated rows get a full window to validate
before they expire.
2026-08-08 04:47:49 +00:00
..

netbird Management Server

netbird management server will control and synchronize peers configuration within your Netbird account and network.

Command Options

The CLI accepts the command management with the following options:

start Netbird Management Server

Usage:
  netbird-mgmt management [flags]

Flags:
      --cert-file string            Location of your SSL certificate. Can be used when you have an existing certificate and don't want a new certificate be generated automatically. If letsencrypt-domain is specified this property has no effect
      --cert-key string             Location of your SSL certificate private key. Can be used when you have an existing certificate and don't want a new certificate be generated automatically. If letsencrypt-domain is specified this property has no effect
      --datadir string              server data directory location
  -h, --help                        help for management
      --letsencrypt-domain string   a domain to issue Let's Encrypt certificate for. Enables TLS using Let's Encrypt. Will fetch and renew certificate, and run the server with TLS
      --port int                    server port to listen on (default 33073)

Global Flags:
      --config string      Netbird config file location to write new config to (default "/etc/netbird")
      --log-file string    sets Netbird log path. If console is specified the the log will be output to stdout (default "/var/log/netbird/management.log")
      --log-level string    (default "info")

Run Management service (Docker)

You can run service in 2 modes - with TLS or without (not recommended).

Run with TLS (Let's Encrypt).

By specifying the --letsencrypt-domain the daemon will handle SSL certificate request and configuration.

In the following example 33073 is the management service default port, and 443 will be used as port for Let's Encrypt challenge and HTTP API.

The server where you are running a container has to have a public IP (for Let's Encrypt certificate challenge).

Replace with your server's public domain (e.g. mydomain.com or subdomain sub.mydomain.com).

# create a volume
docker volume create netbird-mgmt
# run the docker container
docker run -d --name netbird-management \
-p 33073:33073  \
-p 443:443  \
-v netbird-mgmt:/var/lib/netbird  \
-v ./config.json:/etc/netbird/config.json  \
netbirdio/management:latest \
--letsencrypt-domain <YOUR-DOMAIN>

An example of config.json can be found here management.json

Trigger Let's encrypt certificate generation:

curl https://<YOUR-DOMAIN>

The certificate will be persisted in the datadir/letsencrypt/ folder (e.g. /var/lib/netbird/letsencrypt/) inside the container.

Make sure that the datadir is mapped to some folder on a host machine. In case you used the volume command, you can run the following to retrieve the Mountpoint:

docker volume inspect netbird-mgmt
[
    {
        "CreatedAt": "2021-07-25T20:45:28Z",
        "Driver": "local",
        "Labels": {},
        "Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/mgmt/_data",
        "Name": "netbird-mgmt",
        "Options": {},
        "Scope": "local"
    }
]

Consequent restarts of the container will pick up previously generated certificate so there is no need to trigger certificate generation with the curl command on every restart.

Run without TLS.

# create a volume
docker volume create netbird-mgmt
# run the docker container
docker run -d --name netbird-management \
-p 33073:33073  \
-v netbird-mgmt:/var/lib/netbird  \
-v ./config.json:/etc/netbird/config.json  \
netbirdio/management:latest

Debug tag

We also publish a docker image with the debug tag which has the log-level set to default, plus it uses the gcr.io/distroless/base:debug image that can be used with docker exec in order to run some commands in the Management container.

shell $ docker run -d --name netbird-management-debug \
-p 33073:33073  \
-v netbird-mgmt:/var/lib/netbird  \
-v ./config.json:/etc/netbird/config.json  \
netbirdio/management:debug-latest

shell $ docker exec -ti netbird-management-debug /bin/sh
container-shell $ 

For development purposes:

Install golang gRpc tools:

#!/bin/bash
go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@v1.26
go install google.golang.org/grpc/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc@v1.1

Generate gRpc code:

#!/bin/bash
protoc -I proto/ proto/management.proto --go_out=. --go-grpc_out=.