fengzhou/ipsec-vpn-client repository overview

⁠Docker image for IPsec VPN Client

ipsec-vpn-client is a VPN client that can help easy setup IPSec VPN client in Docker and used by the host by managing default IP route.

This image is inspired from configure Linux VPN client using the command line⁠ instructions and is tested with IPsec VPN Server on Docker⁠.

By using Docker privileged and host network, the container will update the default route in Linux once start successfully. The router setting will be restored once stop Docker.

⁠How to use this Docker image

⁠Environment variables

This Docker image uses the following variables, and can be easily managed via env file:

VPN_SERVER_IP=your_vpn_server_public_ip
VPN_PSEC_PSK=your_ipsec_pre_shared_key
VPN_USER=your_vpn_username
VPN_PASSWORD=your_vpn_password)
VERBOSE=true|false

⁠Start the IPSec VPN Client

Prepare env file vpn.env (recommended way) or use environment variables directly to create Docker container:

docker run --rm --name vpn-client --env-file=./vpn.env -d --privileged --net=host fengzhou/ipsec-vpn-client

To see more debug information, please set VERBOSE=true in enviornment variable in env file.

⁠Stop the IPSec VPN Client

Use docker stop command can immediately stop VPN client:

docker stop vpn-client

The default VPN routing rules will be removed once stopped, and the temporary Docker container will be removed as well.

⁠Troubleshooting

Use the following command to check connection logs during container is running:

docker logs vpn-client

Use the following command to check if ppp0 network interface is created or not:

ip a show ppp0

If network route is not fully restored back, use the following command to remove any broken route rule:

route del default dev ppp0

⁠Limitations

• The docker-ipsec-vpn-server and this vpn client cannot be used together on the same host due to 500/udp, 4500/udp ports conflicts
• All existing default route will be redirected to VPN server and need manual route rule to split tunnel.