Gluetun: The Little VPN Client That Could

Lifebandit666, 18 days ago

I’ve tried a bunch of different approaches to VPN in my short self hosted journey.

I chose Mullvad as my VPN and tried to make a container containing an OpenWRT router, a Windows machine, a bunch of containers within containers (Docker in LXC) before learning that’s a shit way of doing things, and then I found Gluetun.

It was so simple to set up, and there was a dude on YouTube with all the Docker compose files and explanations, so I learned what I was doing as I was doing it.

Ultimately the only reason I didn’t end up using it was because I didn’t have my Plex instance in the stack and it couldn’t communicate with the containers I was deploying, a trifle really.

I took what I learned from my Gluetun stack and used it to run Docker in a Debian VM with a the Mullvad app running, which is arguably easier but uses more resources since I run a second VM with Plex and other server stuff in Docker, and I could theoretically run it all in the same VM with a little more knowledge.

shrugal, 19 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

I’ve been running Gluetun for a few months now, and just the other day discovered that you can use it to seamlessly proxy Twitch streams (using it as http proxy for ttv lol pro), so they load via countries that Twitch doesn’t show ads for. Setting it up was ridiculously easy, and now I have neither ads nor endless loading anymore. The whole thing was a really nice surprise!

cantankerous_cashew, 19 days ago

Based. I use gluetun with qbt and ProtonVPN (with port forwarding). Despite this being a tricky config, it was still pretty easy to setup. Can share bash scripts if anyone is interested.

anzo, 19 days ago

There’s a reason why most providers don’t allow that feature anymore. It’s said that port forwarding is a security risk. Also, qBitTorrent works just fine without it.

cantankerous_cashew, 19 days ago

There’s a reason why most providers don’t allow that feature anymore

Yes, cheese pizza

It’s said that port forwarding is a security risk

Says who? Assuming a fully patched system/client and a properly configured firewall/network, I’d love to hear more about these “risks”.

Also, qBitTorrent works just fine without it.

Only if you don’t care about seeding

asbestos, 19 days ago

How do you handle the forwarded port change on every reconnect and updating it in qbt?

Confused_Emus, 19 days ago

There’s another nifty little container called qbittorrent-natmap that will take care of that for you.

cantankerous_cashew, 15 days ago

gluetun bundles a control server on port 8000 which you can query for the port number (don’t worry about openvpn being in the url path, it still works with Wireguard). In my bash script (running on the host system), I use curl to retrieve the forwarded port number and then do a POST with that data to the API of my qbt client which is running in another container on port 8080.

asbestos, 19 days ago

I just did it! Thank you so much! I failed so many times in the past but this took a few hours and now I have that perfect setup that I always wanted.

WeirdGoesPro, 19 days ago

I’m so glad this post helped somebody!

subtext, 19 days ago

You don’t need portainer for it to be easy! The wiki is quite great at providing setup examples for docker compose, regular docker, and others!

WeirdGoesPro, 19 days ago

Indeed! There are many simple and quality ways to set it up, and users can pick anything they prefer. FOSS is dope like that.

halm, 19 days ago

Use Gluetun. Love Gluetun. Gluetun is the answer.

Alright, alright Hypno-toad, you got me! 😅

Jokes aside, this is probably the most convincing writeup I’ve seen in favour of Gluetun. Thanks, will give it a go!

MalReynolds, 19 days ago

God tier VPN solution (if your provider is covered), have two running, one outs in Singapore for *arrs and a localish one for my SearxNG. So much versatility for something so solid…

just_another_person, 19 days ago

Just wondering, but I’m seeing a lot of simple networking questions around here lately, and the majority about people not understanding how VPNs or networks work in general. Have we just reached the point where everything needs to be abstracted away because people don’t understand interfaces, networks, and routing between them now?

Not talking smack, just trying to understand why these questions are so prominent now, so my guess is the above.

perishthethought, 19 days ago

Yes, please. And thank you to everyone who does the heavy lifting for me.

funkless_eck, 19 days ago

it’s not just one thing though. For a non technical user, it’s nerve-wracking to worry that if you screw up the install, or download the wrong package, or configure the YAML wrong, or open the wrong port, or there’s a port conflict, or you forgot to update the software… now you’re potentially unprotected (even if that’s not the case - many will still worry).

Not to mention even if you - as I did - had to skill up to understand it, three months passes and you’re terrified to touch it because you’ve forgotten all the stuff you learned to set it up.

Same as how the majority of people don’t even change their own oil on their cars - even though it’s fairly easy.

Lifebandit666, 18 days ago

It cost me £15 to change the carbon brushes on my washing machine and a 10 minute video on YouTube. The Washer Shop charge £75 to do it, and I considered paying it too.

It’s a bit like that.

WeirdGoesPro, 19 days ago

I think the questions are more prominent because a wider audience of people are becoming more privacy conscious.

In my case, I haven’t had the advantage of going to school for any of this, so I have to pick up knowledge where I can. If there is a reliable tool available to accomplish my task, I’m more likely to use it than to pursue a more manual solution because even simple computing questions can be rabbit holes that result in hours of reading and learning.

The reason that I made this post is because your options are always limited by your awareness of available solutions, and I presumed there might be someone else out there who has struggled getting a VPN reliably bound to a service.

BeatTakeshi, 19 days ago

I fully agree on the rabbit hole effect of learning linux and selfhosting on your own… I have been moving baby steps for 3 years because it’s rare to find even 2 hours in a week where I can do just that. Networking is just daunting to newbies imo

Shadow, 19 days ago

A lot of reasonably competent geeks just never get deep into networking, and VPNs can be overwhelming. It doesn’t really help that for a long time it was all IPSec which basically you need to learn voodoo to manage. Thankfully we have much better tools now, but it’s still just a tech layer that many people don’t touch frequently.

originalucifer, 19 days ago

100% agree. gluetun solved my vpn bleeding/failure problems.