# Wireguard: Home VPN Server


<img src="/images/wireguard.png" alt="Wireguard" width="100px" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;" />

I used to use OpenVPN as a means to connect to my internal network from outside
of my house. It worked really well, but managing its configs was a little bit
of a hassle and, frankly, OpenVPN is old news (/s). I wanted to play with a
new toy.

So I looked into [Wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com).

# Server Config
Since I use
[Home Assistant](/technical/my-story) and it has Add-Ons
available available, I decided to use its Wireguard Add-On.

I had a couple of choices: Try to install an unsupported Wireguard
implementation on my pfSense router, install Wireguard on another system, or
use the Home Assistant Add-On. The last option seemed the easiest to manage,
so that's what I went with.

My thought process here was:

* I'm already running Home Assistant
* Home Assistant and its services are the main resources I want to access
  when I'm not at home.
* The Add-On in Home Assistant is dead-simple to set up and manage.

The great thing about Wireguard, like OpenVPN, is that there are clients for
everything: Linux, ChromeOS (via Android), Android Phones, Mac, Windows, and,
should the need ever arise, iPhone.

# Client Config
{{< figure src="/images/wireguard-config.png" alt="Wireguard Config" caption="Wireguard config screenshot" >}}

Its really easy to manage. I simply go into Home Assistant -> Supervisor
-> Wireguard -> Configuration and add a section similar to the screenshot.

# Android Client Setup (and Probably iPhone too)
Then I go into **Studio Code Server**, browse to the 'wireguard' folder and
find my new profile. There's a qrcode.png file that I can scan inside the
Wireguard app on my phone.  That automatically adds the profile to my phone.

The connection to the Wireguard service is extremely quick and I don't notice
any overhead on my phone.

# Linux Client Setup
On Linux, setting up a connection is done in a couple of ways. For either,
I install the wireguard-tools package (using pacman on Arch).

## Running a Command from a Terminal
First I download the 'client.conf' file from **Studio Code Server** to my
laptop. I copy it to /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf.

Then, when I want to connect to the VPN, I run: `sudo wg-quick up wg0`
To disconnect: `sudo wg-quick down wg0`

To make it simple, I made some shell aliases (bash):
```
alias vpndown='sudo wg-quick down wg0'
alias vpnup='sudo wg-quick up wg0'
```
Then I can simply run `vpnup` and `vpndown`.