wg-meshconf is a tool that will help you to generate peer configuration files for WireGuard mesh networks. You can easily and quickly create WireGuard mesh networks using this tool.
**This is the recommended way to install wg-meshconf for regular users.** This installation method installs the newest release version of wg-meshconf and all of the required dependencies from PyPI.
Alternatively, if you would like to install the program directly from source code, you can follow the steps below. If you would like to install directly from the Git repository:
Usages are dull and boring. Let's see a real-life example of how this tool can be used. This section will demonstrate how to create a simple mesh network with four nodes using wg-meshconf.
For this example, suppose you have four servers as shown below. These servers can reach each other via the `Endpoint` address. For instance, server `tokyo1` can ping server `shanghai1` with the address `shanghai1.com`.
You will first need to add the peers' information into the database. There are two ways to do it: via Excel and via the command line interface.
#### Method A: With Excel
wg-meshconf has changed its database format from JSON to CSV and added the `init` command since version 2.4.0. This means that it is now possible for users to directly edit the database file with Excel or other CSV-compatible editors to create/read/update/delete peer information.
> (P.S. I thought about making a fancy GUI for wg-meshconf like the other tools, but then I thought, why do it the complex way when you can simply "borrow" Excel's GUI?)
Run the following command to initialize a new database file. By default, the database file is named `database.csv`. You can also specify the file's name via `-d`.
```shell
wg-meshconf init
```
Open the database CSV file with an editor like Excel or LibreOffice Calc. You should see the following column headers.
You can then fill in the peers' information. **You will need to fill in at least the peers' `Name`, `Address`, and `Endpoint` values.** These values cannot be automatically generated.
Once you're done, save the file and execute the `init` command again to automatically generate the rest of the needed information such as peer private keys.
```shell
wg-meshconf init
```
If you check the file again, you'll see the necessary fields getting automatically filed in.
After adding all the peers into the database, you can verify that they have all been added correctly via the `wg-meshconf showpeers` command. The `simplify` switch here omits all columns with only `None`s.
Use the `genconfig` command to generate configuration files for all peers. You may also export configurations for only one peer by specifying the peer's name.
The configuration files will be named after the peers' names. By default, all configuration files are exported into a subdirectory named `output`. You can change this by specifying output directory using the `-o` or the `--output` option.
Start up the WireGuard interfaces using the `wg-quick` command. It is also possible to control WireGuard interfaces via WireGuard's `wg-quick@` systemd service. WireGuard status can be verified via the `wg` command after WireGuard interfaces are set up.
If you would like to update a peer's information, use the `updatepeer` command. The syntax of `updatepeer` is the same as that of the `addpeer` command. Instead of adding a new peer, this command overwrites values in existing entries.
In the example below, suppose you would like to update `tokyo1`'s endpoint address and change it to `tokyo321.com`. Use the `updatepeer` command and specify the new endpoint to be `tokyo321.com`. This will overwrite `tokyo1`'s existing `Endpoint` value.
Now that's a lot of info and a lot of unnecessary columns which only have `None`s. Therefore, I added the `-s`/`--simplify` command which omits those useless columns.
Unlike 1.x.x versions of wg-meshconf, version 2.0.0 does not require the user to save or load profiles. Instead, all add peer, update peer and delete peer operations are file operations. The changes will be saved to the database file immediately. The database file to use can be specified via the `-d` or the `--database` option. If no database file is specified, `database.csv` will be used.
Database files are essentially just CSV files (it was JSON before version 2.4.0). Below is an example.
`wg-dynamic` is a tool designed officially by the WireGuard developing team. This new utility will provide a convenient way of configuring networks dynamically, where mesh network being one of the them. If you're interested, check it out at [wg-dynamic@github](https://github.com/WireGuard/wg-dynamic) or [wg-dynamic@official repository](https://git.zx2c4.com/wg-dynamic). You might also want to read this project's [idea page](https://github.com/WireGuard/wg-dynamic/blob/master/docs/idea.md).
