**NetBird combines a configuration-free peer-to-peer private network and a centralized access control system in a single platform, making it easy to create secure private networks for your organization or home.**
**Connect.** NetBird creates a WireGuard-based overlay network that automatically connects your machines over an encrypted tunnel, leaving behind the hassle of opening ports, complex firewall rules, VPN gateways, and so forth.
**Secure.** NetBird enables secure remote access by applying granular access policies, while allowing you to manage them intuitively from a single place. Works universally on any infrastructure.
> This is the quickest way to try self-hosted NetBird. It should take around 5 minutes to get started if you already have a public domain and a VM.
Follow the [Advanced guide with a custom identity provider](https://docs.netbird.io/selfhosted/selfhosted-guide#advanced-guide-with-a-custom-identity-provider) for installations with different IDPs.
- A Linux VM with at least **1CPU** and **2GB** of memory.
- The VM should be publicly accessible on TCP ports **80** and **443** and UDP ports: **3478**, **49152-65535**.
- **Public domain** name pointing to the VM.
**Software requirements:**
- Docker installed on the VM with the docker compose plugin ([Docker installation guide](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/)) or docker with docker-compose in version 2 or higher.
- [jq](https://jqlang.github.io/jq/) installed. In most distributions
Usually available in the official repositories and can be installed with `sudo apt install jq` or `sudo yum install jq`
- [curl](https://curl.se/) installed.
Usually available in the official repositories and can be installed with `sudo apt install curl` or `sudo yum install curl`
- Every machine in the network runs [NetBird Agent (or Client)](client/) that manages WireGuard.
- Every agent connects to [Management Service](management/) that holds network state, manages peer IPs, and distributes network updates to agents (peers).
- NetBird agent uses WebRTC ICE implemented in [pion/ice library](https://github.com/pion/ice) to discover connection candidates when establishing a peer-to-peer connection between machines.
- Connection candidates are discovered with a help of [STUN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN) servers.
- Agents negotiate a connection through [Signal Service](signal/) passing p2p encrypted messages with candidates.
- Sometimes the NAT traversal is unsuccessful due to strict NATs (e.g. mobile carrier-grade NAT) and p2p connection isn't possible. When this occurs the system falls back to a relay server called [TURN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traversal_Using_Relays_around_NAT), and a secure WireGuard tunnel is established via the TURN server.
In November 2022, NetBird joined the [StartUpSecure program](https://www.forschung-it-sicherheit-kommunikationssysteme.de/foerderung/bekanntmachungen/startup-secure) sponsored by The Federal Ministry of Education and Research of The Federal Republic of Germany. Together with [CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security](https://cispa.de/en) NetBird brings the security best practices and simplicity to private networking.
We use open-source technologies like [WireGuard®](https://www.wireguard.com/), [Pion ICE (WebRTC)](https://github.com/pion/ice), [Coturn](https://github.com/coturn/coturn), and [Rosenpass](https://rosenpass.eu). We very much appreciate the work these guys are doing and we'd greatly appreciate if you could support them in any way (e.g. giving a star or a contribution).