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Getting Started

This page explains how to get started with wg-easy. The guide uses Docker Compose as a reference. In our examples, we mount the named volume etc_wireguard to /etc/wireguard inside the container.

Preliminary Steps

Before you can get started with deploying your own VPN, there are some requirements to be met:

  1. You need to have a host that you can manage
  2. You need to have a domain name or a public IP address
  3. You need a supported architecture (x86_64, arm64)

Host Setup

There are a few requirements for a suitable host system:

  1. You need to have a container runtime installed

About the Container Runtime

On the host, you need to have a suitable container runtime (like Docker or Podman) installed. We assume Docker Compose is installed. We have aligned file names and configuration conventions with the latest Docker Compose specification. If you're using podman, make sure to read the related documentation.

Deploying the Actual Image

Tagging Convention

To understand which tags you should use, read this section carefully. Our CI will automatically build, test and push new images to the following container registry:

  1. GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io/wg-easy/wg-easy)

All workflows are using the tagging convention listed below. It is subsequently applied to all images.

Event Image Tags
cron on master nightly
push a tag (v1.2.3) 1.2.3, 1.2, 1, latest

When publishing a tag we follow the Semantic Versioning specification. The latest tag is always pointing to the latest stable release. If you want to avoid breaking changes, use the major version tag (e.g. 15).

Get All Files

Issue the following command to acquire the necessary file:

wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wg-easy/wg-easy/master/docker-compose.yml"

Start the Container

To start the container, issue the following command:

sudo docker compose up -d

Configuration Steps

Now follow the setup process in your web browser

Stopping the Container

To stop the container, issue the following command:

sudo docker compose down

Using the Correct Commands For Stopping and Starting wg-easy

Use sudo docker compose up / down, not sudo docker compose start / stop. Otherwise, the container is not properly destroyed and you may experience problems during startup because of inconsistent state.

That's it! It really is that easy.

If you need more help you can read the Basic Installation Tutorial.