Site to site Wireguard VPN between OPNSense & Debian Linux server

I have a Debian linode box acting as a wireguard server. I wanted to join my opnsense firewall to it to allow devices behind it to access the box through the wireguard tunnel. It was not as straightforward as I had hoped, but thankfully I got it all working.

OPNSense side

Documentation link

Install wireguard via GUI

Install the os-wireguard package. Manually drop to the CLI and install the wireguard package as well:
sudo pkg install wireguard

Configure Local instance

Name and listen port can be random. Tunnel address is the subnet you wish to expose to the other end (the subnet you wish to have access to the tunnel.)
Leave everything else blank and hit save
Edit your new connection and copy the Public key, this will need to be sent to the Debian server

Configure Endpoint

Name: hostname of Debian server
Public Key: Public key of server (can be obtained by running wg show on the server)
Shared Secret: blank (unless you’ve configured it on the server)
Allowed IPs: IPs or subnets on the Debian server you wish to expose to the client side (the OPNSense box)
Endpoint address: DNS name of Debian server
Endpoint port: Port Debian wireguard instance is listening on

Enable the VPN

General tab / Enable wireguard checkbox and hit apply.

Debian side

Take down the tunnel

sudo wg-quick down wg0

Edit wireguard config to add peer

sudo vim /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf

[Peer]
PublicKey = <PUBLIC_KEY_YOU_COPIED_IN_LOCAL_INSTANCE_STEP>
AllowedIPs = <IPs or Subnets behind the OPNSense side you wish to be exposed to the Debian side>

Restart wireguard

sudo wg-quick up wg0

Check connections

Example wg show output below with dummy IPs:

sudo wg show
interface: wg0
  public key: f+/J4JO0aL6kwOaudAvZVa1H2mDzR8Nh3Vfeqq+anF8=
  private key: (hidden)
  listening port: 12345

peer: TuUW7diXcWlaV97z3cQ1/92Zal2Pm9Qz/W2OMN+v20g=
  endpoint: 10.0.0.1:54137
  allowed ips: 10.0.0.2/32
  latest handshake: 17 seconds ago
  transfer: 5.14 KiB received, 3.81 KiB sent

peer: CZuC/+wxvzj9+TiGeyZtcT/lMGZnXsfSs/h5Jtw2VSE=
  endpoint: 8.8.8.8:12345
  allowed ips: 192.168.1.1/32
  latest handshake: 7 minutes, 8 seconds ago
  transfer: 5.89 MiB received, 952.20 MiB sent

The endpoint: line gets populated when a successful VPN connection is made. If it’s missing, the tunnel was not established.

Troubleshooting

OPNSense box

Nothing happens after saving information and enabling tunnel

Make sure latest wireguard package is installed

sudo pkg install wireguard

Get more log output by opening a shell on your OPNSense box and running

sudo /usr/local/etc/rc.d/wireguard start

In my case I was getting this interesting message

[!] Missing WireGuard kernel support (ifconfig: SIOCIFCREATE2: Invalid argument). Falling back to slow userspace implementation.
[#] wireguard-go wg0
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                                                                                                                   │
│   Running wireguard-go is not required because this                                                     │
│   kernel has first class support for WireGuard. For                                                          │
│   information on installing the kernel module,                                                                 │
│   please visit                                                                                                                             │
│         https://www.wireguard.com/install/                                                                           │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

I fixed this problem by manually installing wireguard with the pkg install command above.

Debian box

Wireguard config not saving

make sure to stop the tunnel first, otherwise your changes get overwritten by the daemon.

sudo wg-quick down wg0
<make changes>
sudo wg-quick up wg0

Technicus