167ee08e14
Adds a new "private" service mode for the reverse proxy: services reachable exclusively over the embedded WireGuard tunnel, gated by per-peer group membership instead of operator auth schemes. Wire contract - ProxyMapping.private (field 13): the proxy MUST call ValidateTunnelPeer and fail closed; operator schemes are bypassed. - ProxyCapabilities.private (4) + supports_private_service (5): capability gate. Management never streams private mappings to proxies that don't claim the capability; the broadcast path applies the same filter via filterMappingsForProxy. - ValidateTunnelPeer RPC: resolves an inbound tunnel IP to a peer, checks the peer's groups against service.AccessGroups, and mints a session JWT on success. checkPeerGroupAccess fails closed when a private service has empty AccessGroups. - ValidateSession/ValidateTunnelPeer responses now carry peer_group_ids + peer_group_names so the proxy can authorise policy-aware middlewares without an extra management round-trip. - ProxyInboundListener + SendStatusUpdate.inbound_listener: per-account inbound listener state surfaced to dashboards. - PathTargetOptions.direct_upstream (11): bypass the embedded NetBird client and dial the target via the proxy host's network stack for upstreams reachable without WireGuard. Data model - Service.Private (bool) + Service.AccessGroups ([]string, JSON- serialised). Validate() rejects bearer auth on private services. Copy() deep-copies AccessGroups. pgx getServices loads the columns. - DomainConfig.Private threaded into the proxy auth middleware. Request handler routes private services through forwardWithTunnelPeer and returns 403 on validation failure. - Account-level SynthesizePrivateServiceZones (synthetic DNS) and injectPrivateServicePolicies (synthetic ACL) gate on len(svc.AccessGroups) > 0. Proxy - /netbird proxy --private (embedded mode) flag; Config.Private in proxy/lifecycle.go. - Per-account inbound listener (proxy/inbound.go) binding HTTP/HTTPS on the embedded NetBird client's WireGuard tunnel netstack. - proxy/internal/auth/tunnel_cache: ValidateTunnelPeer response cache with single-flight de-duplication and per-account eviction. - Local peerstore short-circuit: when the inbound IP isn't in the account roster, deny fast without an RPC. - proxy/server.go reports SupportsPrivateService=true and redacts the full ProxyMapping JSON from info logs (auth_token + header-auth hashed values now only at debug level). Identity forwarding - ValidateSessionJWT returns user_id, email, method, groups, group_names. sessionkey.Claims carries Email + Groups + GroupNames so the proxy can stamp identity onto upstream requests without an extra management round-trip on every cookie-bearing request. - CapturedData carries userEmail / userGroups / userGroupNames; the proxy stamps X-NetBird-User and X-NetBird-Groups on r.Out from the authenticated identity (strips client-supplied values first to prevent spoofing). - AccessLog.UserGroups: access-log enrichment captures the user's group memberships at write time so the dashboard can render group context without reverse-resolving stale memberships. OpenAPI/dashboard surface - ReverseProxyService gains private + access_groups; ReverseProxyCluster gains private + supports_private. ReverseProxyTarget target_type enum gains "cluster". ServiceTargetOptions gains direct_upstream. ProxyAccessLog gains user_groups.
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NetBird combines a configuration-free peer-to-peer private network and a centralized access control system in a single platform, making it easy to create secure private networks for your organization or home.
Connect. NetBird creates a WireGuard-based overlay network that automatically connects your machines over an encrypted tunnel, leaving behind the hassle of opening ports, complex firewall rules, VPN gateways, and so forth.
Secure. NetBird enables secure remote access by applying granular access policies while allowing you to manage them intuitively from a single place. Works universally on any infrastructure.
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/10cec749-bb56-4ab3-97af-4e38850108d2
Self-host NetBird (video)
Key features
Quickstart with NetBird Cloud
- Download and install NetBird at https://app.netbird.io/install.
- Follow the steps to sign up with Google, Microsoft, GitHub or your email address.
- Check the NetBird admin UI.
Quickstart with self-hosted NetBird
This is the quickest way to try self-hosted NetBird. It should take around 5 minutes to get started if you already have a public domain and a VM. Follow the Advanced guide with a custom identity provider for installations with different IdPs.
Infrastructure requirements:
- A Linux VM with at least 1 CPU and 2 GB of memory.
- The VM should be publicly accessible on TCP ports 80 and 443 and UDP port 3478.
- A public domain name pointing to the VM.
Software requirements:
- Docker with the Compose plugin (Compose v2 or higher). See the Docker installation guide.
Steps
- Download and run the installation script:
export NETBIRD_DOMAIN=netbird.example.com; curl -fsSL https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/releases/latest/download/getting-started.sh | bash
A bit on NetBird internals
- Every machine in the network runs the NetBird agent, which manages WireGuard.
- Every agent connects to the Management Service, which holds network state, manages peer IPs, and distributes updates to agents.
- Agents use ICE (via pion/ice) to discover connection candidates for peer-to-peer connections.
- Candidates are discovered with the help of STUN servers.
- Agents negotiate a connection through the Signal Service, exchanging end-to-end encrypted messages with candidates.
- When NAT traversal fails (e.g. mobile carrier-grade NAT) and a direct p2p connection isn't possible, the system falls back to a Relay Service and a secure WireGuard tunnel is established through it.
See a complete architecture overview for details.
Community projects
- NetBird installer script
- netbird-tui - terminal UI for managing NetBird peers, routes, and settings
- caddy-netbird - Caddy plugin that embeds a NetBird client for proxying HTTP and TCP/UDP traffic through NetBird networks
Note: The main branch may be in an unstable or even broken state during development.
For stable versions, see releases.
Support acknowledgement
In November 2022, NetBird joined the StartUpSecure program sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of the Federal Republic of Germany. Together with the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, NetBird brings security best practices and simplicity to private networking.
Acknowledgements
We build on open-source technologies like WireGuard®, Pion ICE, and Rosenpass. We greatly appreciate the work these projects are doing, and we'd love it if you could support them too (e.g., by starring or contributing).
Legal
This repository is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause license, which applies to all parts of the repository except for the directories management/, signal/ and relay/. Those directories are licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3.0 (AGPLv3). See the respective LICENSE files inside each directory.
WireGuard and the WireGuard logo are registered trademarks of Jason A. Donenfeld.