LibreELEC can be configured as a WireGuard VPN client allowing you to accessing media in a remote location or tunnel traffic to avoid local inspection of network activity. This guide assumes configuration of a single WireGuard tunnel that is persistent, i.e. activated on device boot so that Kodi network traffic is routed through the WireGuard VPN tunnel.

WireGuard tunnels are managed by a ConnMan VPN plugin (connman-vpn.service) that acts as a companion to the network connection manager daemon (connman.service). The VPN plugin watches /storage/.config/wireguard/*.config and definea ConnMan services from auto-discovered configuration files. Once a valid WireGuard .config has been imported it can be connected manually using connmanctl from the SSH console or scripted from a systemd service that runs on boot. Connections can also be managed using the network 'Connections' tab in the LibreELEC settings add-on which controls ConnMan via d-bus.

Sample Config

ConnMan uses its own configuration file format (see below) so you cannot import/use the files exported from WireGuard server tools and third-party VPN services - the format is different. Those files will contain everything you need, but you must manually transpose the information into the ConnMan format:

[provider_wireguard]
Type = WireGuard
Name = WireGuard (Home)
Host = 185.210.30.121
WireGuard.Address = 10.2.0.2/24
WireGuard.ListenPort = 51820
WireGuard.PrivateKey = qKIj010hDdWSjQQyVCnEgthLXusBgm3I6HWrJUaJymc=
WireGuard.PublicKey = zzqUfWGIil6QxrAGz77HE5BGUEdD2PgHYnCg3CDKagE=
WireGuard.PresharedKey = DfEYeVs04HS9XhKGM4/ZXHG3Qc4MFK2AJd8XouYDbRQ=
WireGuard.DNS = 8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.1
WireGuard.AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0
WireGuard.EndpointPort = 51820
WireGuard.PersistentKeepalive = 25

Name = AnythingYouLike Host = IP of the WireGuard server WireGuard.Address = The internal IP of the client node, e.g. a /24 address WireGuard.ListenPort = The client listen port (optional) WireGuard.PrivateKey = The client private key WireGuard.PublicKey = The server public key WireGuard.PresharedKey = The server pre-shared key (optional) WireGuard.DNS = Nameserver to be used with the connection (optional) WireGuard.AllowedIPs = Subnets accessed via the tunnel, 0.0.0.0/0 is "route all traffic" WireGuard.EndpointPort = The server ListenPort WireGuard.PersistentKeepalive = Periodic keepalive in seconds (optional)

Creating Keys

If you need to create some, run wg-keygen from the SSH console and /storage/.cache/wireguard will contain new publickey, privatekey, and preshared files with keys inside. Most users will not need to generate WireGuard keys as they will be in the configuration file provided by a VPN service provider.

Testing Connections

Once you have saved a configuration file, check it is valid:

RPi4:~ # connmanctl services
* R home              vpn_185_210_30_121
*AO Wired             ethernet_dca622135939_cable

In the above example vpn_185_210_30_121 was created (vpn_host) as the ConnMan service name. Test the service will connect using:

RPi4:~ # connmanctl connect vpn_185_210_30_121

ConnMan will create a new network interface, so ifconfig will show wg0 or sometimes a higer number like wg1 or wg2:

RPi4:~ # ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr DC:A6:32:13:26:3b  
          inet addr:192.168.10.25  Bcast:192.168.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3136938 errors:0 dropped:40816 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:242506 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:310409413 (296.0 MiB)  TX bytes:22433323 (21.3 MiB)
​
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:6109 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6109 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:415013 (405.2 KiB)  TX bytes:415013 (405.2 KiB)
​
wg0       Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.2.0.2  P-t-P:10.2.0.2  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP  MTU:1420  Metric:1
          RX packets:13744 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11080 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:13775220 (13.1 MiB)  TX bytes:1232552 (1.1 MiB)

You should be able to ping the remote (server) side of the WireGuard VPN tunnel. In our example this is 10.2.0.1:

RPi4:~ # ping 10.2.0.1
PING 10.2.0.1 (10.2.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.2.0.1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=147.936 ms
64 bytes from 10.2.0.1: seq=1 ttl=64 time=147.955 ms

The routing table will show normal traffic routed to the wg0 interface:

RPi4:~ # route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
default         *               0.0.0.0         U     0      0        0 wg0
1.1.1.1         *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg0
8.8.8.8         *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 wg0
10.2.0.0        *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 wg0
192.168.10.0    *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
192.168.10.1    *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 eth0
185.210.30.121  192.168.10.1    255.255.255.255 UGH   0      0        0 eth0

To disconnect the ConnMan service:

RPi4:~ # connmanctl disconnect vpn_185_210_30_121

Check ifconfig again and the WireGuard interface will be gone.

Configuring Systemd

Create a systemd wireguard.service file to start the connection automatically on boot, after the network starts, and before Kodi is launched. The sample wireguard.service file looks like:

[Unit]
Description=WireGuard VPN Service
After=network-online.target nss-lookup.target wait-time-sync.service connman-vpn.service
Before=kodi.service
​
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/bin/connmanctl connect vpn_service_name_goes_here
ExecStop=/usr/bin/connmanctl disconnect vpn_service_name_goes_here
​
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Copy the sample wireguard.service file to /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service

cp /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service.sample /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service

Replace vpn_service_name_goes_here with your service name, e.g. vpn_185_210_30_121 using nano. Use ctrl+o to save changes and ctrl+x to exit nano:

nano /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service

Now we can enable and start the service:

RPi4:~ # systemctl enable /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service
Created symlink /storage/.config/system.d/multi-user.target.wants/wireguard.service → /storage/.config/system.d/wireguard.service.
RPi4:~ # systemctl start wireguard.service

Check the WireGuard tunnel is active using "ifconfig" and "ping" and if all is good, reboot to test the WireGuard tunnel comes up automatically on boot.

Thanks

Big thanks! to ConnMan maintainer Daniel Wagner (wagi) who worked with LibreELEC staff to implement WireGuard support in ConnMan (he wrote the code, we abused tested it).