Files
netbird/management
riccardom dc4d0e0274 [management] Renew challenges only for the peers that answer one
The refresh pushed an update to every connected peer of the account, while only
the peers a certificate check applies to carry a nonce. On an account where a
handful of peers sit behind the check and the rest do not, everyone was woken
several times a day to be handed a map that changed nothing for them.

Push to the sources of the enabled policies whose posture checks include a
certificate check, which is exactly the set that is sent a challenge.

Resolving the set the other way round than the gRPC layer does is the risk here:
a peer the refresh forgets stops being renewed and falls out of its policies
silently, which is the failure this whole mechanism exists to prevent. So the
selection is held against processPeerPostureChecks, the per-peer rule that
decides who receives a challenge in the first place, by a test that asks both
the same question and requires the same answer.
2026-10-02 16:21:04 +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=.