I’ve got a Linux server running Xubuntu at the moment (It was a media player first), and it also runs two Minecraft servers for the family. It has two network cards that are both connected to the internet. Is there a way to bind the VPN to one of the cards and use the other one for regular use?
I’ve got Surfshark as my VPN, and it doesn’t allow port forwarding under Linux. I’ve got some software that I want to keep behind the VPN, but the lack of port forwarding is stopping me from sharing the Minecraft servers, and when the VPN is active, it slows down the connection to some of my services like Plex.
I’ve tried to look it up, but I just don’t know enough to get myself anywhere. I’ve found results that talk about name spaces and routing tables, but they assume a level of knowledge that I just haven’t got yet.
I want to use the Arr suite and qBittorrent as the main programs behind the VPN, and Plex, Mylar (a comic manager), Syncthing, and Minecraft as the main programs without it. If I set up qBittorrent and the Arrs as Docker containers, can I use Gluetun to bind just them to the VPN? The VPN is using OpenVPN connections if that makes a difference.
Thanks in advance :)
Yes, that’s what Gluetun is for. You create a Gluetun container and specify which containers should use it as the gateway in the compose file with:
network_mode: “service:gluetun”
Then you can open a shell in the container and run this to see if the container’s IP is different from your own:
curl ifconfig.io
Make sure to try stopping the gluetun container and confirm your other containers lose network access.
There are plenty of guides about this if you search for “gluetun arr stack”, like this random one I picked: https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/gluetun-docker-guide/
That has some steps outlining the basic gluetun configuration, how to put specific containers behind it, and test it.
I’m pretty sure OP is asking about forcing containers to use the VPN through gluetun.
“If I set up qBittorrent and the Arrs as Docker containers, can I use Gluetun to bind just them to the VPN?”
Apologies for the slow reply :)
To clarify, I’m happy with using either, if my network traffic is split. Ideally I want to switch a lot of my programs to containers at some point, then switch to a better server OS. In the meantime though, I just want to get everything working together.
Qbittorrent has to be behind the VPN, and that’s stopping my Minecraft servers from connecting to the outside world. If there’s a way to force Qbittorrent to be behind the VPN while leaving a non VPN connection open, I’m happy to use it. I only mentioned Gluetun because I’ve heard of it, and I know that it’s for keeping containers behind a VPN. I thought it might be the answer here :)
Yes but why?
What’s the VPN for?
Yes you can!
As you said, it’s got everything to do with routing and you don’t know how to do that yet.
Now’s a great time to learn!
If you’re on a time crunch, go ahead and use network namespaces under network manager to set up something like what you want as another user suggested.
If you have time to learn about the firewall and routing table rules, put on your wire rim sunglasses, pop a jungle cd in and crack open Linux Firewalls or some such book for nerds.
If you’re on a time crunch, go ahead and use network namespaces under network manager to set up something like what you want as another user suggested.
Is there a way to do this without NetworkManager?
I have only used them with network manager, but according to the manual it seems possible to use them free of network manager, and maybe even systemd!
If you’re on a time crunch, go ahead and use network namespaces under network manager to set up something like what you want as another user suggested.
I’d love to, but I have no idea how >.< :D
I have a vague idea of what they are and what they do, but everything I’ve found assumes a level of understanding that I don’t have yet. I’ve found this man page from searcing an example posted in another reply, and it’s helped, but I’m still confused :)
https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man8/ip-netns.8.html
Yeah, there’s a baseline of network stack understanding that you gotta have in order to use some of the tools, even Theo es that are supposed to make it easier.
What don’t you get? Maybe I can point you in the right direction.
Thank you :)
The reply from @jet@hackertalks.com below lead me to the man page for ip netns here:
https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man8/ip-netns.8.html
As far as I understand it, I could run programs like this:
ip netns exec vpn ~/qbittorrent/start.sh
ip netns exec clear ~/minecraft/start.sh
but I can’t figure out how to get the VPN to only run under the namespace. When I run it now, it reroutes all connections through it. I’ve got an OpenVPN connection that I’ve set one of my network connections to connect to automatically, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. As soon as I connect the VPN, everything goes through it.
I’m still reading though, so hopefully I’ll figure it out :)
Network namespaces!
ip netns exec namespace command
One namespace for surfshark, and anything you run in that namespace uses those rules
Apologies for the slow reply :)
I’m reading up on this at the moment. If I’m understanding it correctly, I would run that command to launch a program, but could I use it for something that launches at startup?
My Minecraft and Qbittorrent instances start automatically, so could I change them to something like
ip netns exec vpn ~/qbittorrent/start.sh
ip netns exec clear ~/minecraft/start.sh
or change the application’s autostart Command box to ip netns exec vpn qbittorrent %U if the current entry is just qbittorrent %U
Do these make sense?
Network namespaces and policy based routing are black magic, IMO.
I’ve got a VPN set up on my router and separate VLANs set up for ordinary traffic and VPN traffic. A device doesn’t need to support VPNs at all, I just connect it to the VPN VLAN and all its traffic goes over the VPN whether it likes it or not. I’ve got separate wifi SSIDs for each VLAN.
My desktop is connected to both VLANs with a network namespace set up for the VPN VLAN, so sudo vpn rtorrent runs rtorrent in the namespace that’s connected to the VPN VLAN.
My setup is nice, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t want to learn quite a bit about networking.
