Files
netbird/management
mlsmaycon 167ee08e14 feat(private-service): expose NetBird-only services over tunnel peers
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.
2026-05-20 22:46:18 +02:00
..

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=.