start-os/START-TUNNEL.md

StartTunnel

A self-hosted Wiregaurd VPN optimized for creating VLANs and reverse tunneling to personal servers.

You can think of StartTunnel as "virtual router in the cloud"

Use it for private, remote access, to self-hosted services running on a personal server, or to expose self-hosted services to the public Internet without revealing the host server's IP address.

Installation

1. Rent a low cost VPS. For most use cases, the cheapest option should be enough.

   • It must have a dedicated public IP address.
   • For (CPU), memory (RAM), and storage (disk), choose the minimum spec.
   • For transfer (bandwidth), it depends on (1) your use case and (2) your home Internet's upload speed. Even if you intend to serve large files or stream content from your server, there is no reason to pay for speeds that exceed your home Internet's upload speed.

2. Provision the VPS with the latest version of Debian.

3. Access the VPS via SSH.

4. Install StartTunnel:

TMP_DIR=$(mktemp -d) && (cd $TMP_DIR && wget https://github.com/Start9Labs/start-os/releases/download/v0.4.0-alpha.12/start-tunnel-0.4.0-alpha.12-68f401b_$(uname -m).deb && apt-get install -y ./start-tunnel-0.4.0-alpha.12-68f401b_$(uname -m).deb) && rm -rf $TMP_DIR && systemctl start start-tunneld && sleep 1 && start-tunnel web init

Features

• Create Subnets: Each subnet creates a private, virtual local area network (VLAN), similar to the LAN created by a home router.

• Add Devices: When you add a device (server, phone, laptop) to a subnet, it receives a LAN IP address on that subnet as well as a unique Wireguard config that must be copied, downloaded, or scanned into the device.

• Forward Ports: Forwarding a port creates a "reverse tunnel", exposing a specific port on a specific device to the public Internet.

CLI

By default, StartTunnel is managed via the start-tunnel command line interface, which is self-documented.

start-tunnel --help

Web Interface

If you choose to enable the web interface (recommended in most cases), StartTunnel can be accessed as a website from the browser, or programmatically via API.

1. Initialize the web interface.

   start-tunnel web init
   

2. When prompted, select the IP address at which to host the web interface. In many cases, there will be only one IP address.

3. When prompted, enter the port at which to host the web interface. The default is 8443, and we recommend using it. If you change the default, choose an uncommon port to avoid conflicts.

4. Select whether to autogenerate a self-signed certificate or provide your own certificate and key. If you choose to autogenerate, you will be asked to list all IP addresses and domains for which to sign the certificate. For example, if you intend to access your StartTunnel web UI at a domain, include the domain in the list.

5. You will receive a success message that the webserver is running at the chosen IP:port, as well as your SSL certificate and an autogenerated UI password.

6. If not already, trust the certificate in your system keychain and/or browser.

7. If you lose/forget your password, you can reset it using the CLI.