In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Wireguard on CentOS 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Wireguard is an open-source, dependable, advanced, VPN tunneling software you can install and use right now to create a secure, point-to-point connection to a server. It is cross-platform and can run almost anywhere, including Linux, Windows, Android, and macOS. Wireguard is a peer-to-peer VPN. it does not use the client-server model. Depending on its configuration, a peer can act as a traditional server or client.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Wireguard Linux VPN on CentOS 8.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: CentOS 8.
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install Wireguard on CentOS 8
Step 1. First, let’s start by ensuring your system is up-to-date.
sudo dnf install epel-release elrepo-release sudo dnf update
Step 2. Installing Wireguard on CentOS 8.
Now we install WireGuard by running the following command:
sudo dnf install kmod-wireguard wireguard-tools
Step 3. Configure WireGuard.
First, you will need to generate the public and private keys inside /etc/wireguard directory:
wg genkey | tee /etc/wireguard/privatekey | wg pubkey | tee /etc/wireguard/publickey
You should see your generated key in the following output:
Nnid+rqJBnsZ+SN68dILmeilanaKyFTlSjBIBMWsbzU=
Then, create a new file named wg0.conf and add the following contents:
nano /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
Add the following lines:
[Interface] ### VPN server private IP address ### Address = 10.0.0.1/24 ### Save and update this config file when a new peer (vpn client) added ### SaveConfig = true ### VPN server port - You can choose any port ### ListenPort = 51820 ### VPN server's private key i.e. /etc/wireguard/privatekey - the one from above ### PrivateKey = Nnid+rqJBnsZ+SN68dILmeilanaKyFTlSjBIBMWsbzU= PostUp = firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port 51820/udp && firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-masquerade PostDown = firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-port 51820/udp && firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-masquerade
Next, bring up the WireGuard interface by using wg-quick command:
wg-quick up wg0
You can now check the status of the wg0 interface with the following command:
$ wg show wg0
Step 4. Enable IP Forwarding.
Before starting, you will need to enable IP forwarding in your system. You can enable it by creating a new /etc/sysctl.d/99-custom.conf file:
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.d/99-custom.conf
Add the following line:
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
Save and close the file then run the following command to apply the changes:
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/99-custom.conf
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Wireguard. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Wireguard VPN on your CentOS 8 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Wireguard website.
