Riccardo Manfrin
70ddb2a393
* [client] Move the Signal registration wait into its own helper Pure move, no behavior change. The wait for the registration header and the check on its value leave connect() for awaitRegistration(), so the next commit can bound that wait in one place. * [client] Split the Signal test server helper from its listener setup Pure move, no behavior change. serveTestSignalExchange serves any SignalExchangeServer on a local listener; startTestSignalServer keeps serving the real server through it. Lets a test wrap the real server. * [client] Bound the wait for the Signal registration header After an outage the Signal client could wait forever for the registration header of a new stream. Keepalive cannot end that wait when whatever answers the transport (a proxy in front of Signal, or Signal itself) accepts the stream and never answers it, and the receive watchdog only starts once registration succeeds. Signal then stayed down until the daemon was restarted, while Management and Relay recovered. Cancel the stream when the header does not arrive within 10 seconds, so connect() fails and the existing retry loop opens a new stream. A timer is used instead of a context deadline because the stream context must outlive registration. * [client] Report Signal unhealthy while no stream is registered IsHealthy judged Signal by the gRPC connection state alone and marked it connected whenever the connection was Ready or Idle. With the connection up but no stream registered, the client cannot receive offers or answers, yet netbird status showed Signal: Connected, hiding a stuck registration for as long as it lasted. Require a registered stream before reporting healthy. When there is none, return false without touching the recorder: the disconnect that dropped the stream already reported its reason. * [client] Name the server that reconnected in the SR watcher log Signal and Relay shared one reconnect callback, which logged "reconnected to Signal or Relay server" for either. A Relay reconnect while the Signal stream was down read as Signal having recovered, which misled diagnosis of a stuck Signal registration. Register one callback per server so the log names the one that actually reconnected. Which listeners get notified, and when, is unchanged. * [client] Trim comments in the Signal registration and health code Comment-only change, no behavior change. Drop comments that restate the code and keep only the reason a timer is used instead of a context deadline. * [client] Check Signal stream registration before the connection state IsHealthy returned true for a Connecting or Shutdown channel before the registration check ran, so a client with no registered stream could still be reported healthy while the channel was reconnecting. Check the stream first; the connection-state cases now only apply to a client that has a registered stream. * [client] Log a plain connect in the SR watcher The Signal and Relay callbacks also fire on the first connection, not only after a disconnect, so "reconnected" was wrong at startup. Log "connected to <server> server" for both cases. * [client] Say what the SR watcher does when it logs The line was read as a per-server connect log, which Signal and Relay already emit themselves. What it marks is the peer guards being told to reset their reconnection backoff, which happens only once both are ready. Log that, naming the server whose event triggered it.
Start using NetBird at netbird.io
See Documentation
Join our Slack channel or our Community forum
🚀 We are hiring! Join us at https://netbird.io/careers
🤖 NetBird Agent Network (Beta)
Identity-aware access control for AI agents — keyless access to LLM APIs and private resources over the encrypted NetBird tunnel. See
agent-network/or read the docs at netbird.ai.
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.
Reporting bugs and requesting features
NetBird uses a discussion-first workflow. Bug reports and feature requests start in Discussions, not as issues.
| What you want to do | Where to go |
|---|---|
| Report a bug, regression, or unexpected behavior | Issue Triage |
| Request a feature or share an idea | Ideas & Feature Requests |
| Ask about setup, configuration, or self-hosting | Q&A / Support |
| Report a security vulnerability | Security policy, never a public thread |
Our team and maintainers triage discussions, ask follow-up questions, check for duplicates, and reproduce bugs. Validated reports are promoted to issues. This keeps the issue tracker a clear answer to one question: what is the team working on.
Please search existing discussions and issues first, including closed ones. If something similar already exists, upvote it and add your details there instead of opening a duplicate.
For bug reports, include your NetBird version, operating system, deployment type (Cloud, self-hosted, Kubernetes, or Docker), reproduction steps, expected and actual behavior, and a debug bundle where relevant:
netbird version
netbird status -d -A
netbird debug for 1m -A -S -U
-U uploads the bundle and prints a file key you can paste instead of attaching the archive.
-A anonymizes the output, which matters on a public thread. It masks most identifying details
but is not full redaction, so read the bundle before posting it. Two levels are available:
| Level | How to select | What it masks |
|---|---|---|
default |
-A / --anonymize |
Public IP addresses, IPv6 ULA addresses, MAC addresses, and domains other than netbird.io, netbird.cloud, netbird.selfhosted, and netbird.stage. IPv4 private, CGNAT, and link-local ranges are kept |
strict |
--anonymize-level strict (implies -A) |
The above, plus IPv4 private, CGNAT, and link-local ranges, peer names in front of netbird.cloud, netbird.selfhosted, and netbird.stage, and WireGuard public keys. Labels under netbird.io are kept, since it only hosts infrastructure |
See collecting a debug bundle and the CLI reference for details.
See How to use Discussions, Issues, and Pull Requests for the full workflow, or SUPPORT.md for a shorter version.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. NetBird works ticket first, anything that changes behavior needs an issue the team has agreed on before you open a pull request.
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.