I want to move away from Cloudflare tunnels, so I rented a cheap VPS from Hetzner and tried to follow this guide. Unfortunately, the WireGuard setup didn’t work. I’m trying to forward all traffic from the VPS to my homeserver and vice versa. Are there any other ways to solve this issue?
VPS Info:
OS: Debian 12
Architecture: ARM64 / aarch64
RAM: 4 GB
Traffic: 20 TB
Forget iptables. You have a broken Wireguard setup. Did you verify that you have the proper keys and that Wireguard is allowed though the firewall?
I have no idea how to properly manage the firewall with Hetzner. I’ve opened the ports on the Hetzner management page and I ran several iptables commands to allow traffic from those ports. Still doesn’t work. This is weird!
What firewall are you using in the VPS? It will likely be firewalld or ufw
Does iptables count as a firewall? You said that I should “forget” iptables. Is it that bad? It came preinstalled on the VPS. Should I switch? And if so, how?
Iptables is the low level mechanism that handles network routing. Firewall software just takes it up a layer so you can manage it without crazy long commands
Alright, sounds good. What firewall are you recommending me to use? I would like to use a firewall that’s easy to manage.
Edit: I went with
ufw.Sorry I didn’t mean you should go out and create a firewall. (Although that’s a good idea) I mean there is a issue with either your connectivity or your Wireguard config.
for testing just set all chains to allow and flush all the rules. then ping the wireguard ip of your vps from your home server (the one where wireguard is configured). this should work and should tell the vps where it can find the other wireguard endpoint. pinging your home server from the vps should work now. if this makes the connection work properly look into the wireguard keepalive settings and make sure that your home server regulary announces itself to your vps.
after that reload the netfilter/iptables on your vps.
you don’t need a firewall management tool, as long as there are no services running on the public interface there are no open ports that would need filtering.