128 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
128 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
[](https://travis-ci.org/costela/wesher)
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[](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/costela/wesher)
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# wesher
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`wesher` creates and manages a mesh overlay network across a group of nodes, using [wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/).
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Its main use-case is adding low-maintenance security to public-cloud networks or connecting different cloud providers.
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**⚠ WARNING**: since mesh membership is controlled by a mesh-wide pre-shared key, this effectively downgrades some of the
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security benefits from wireguard. See [security considerations](#security-considerations) below for more details.
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## Quickstart
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Before starting, make sure [wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/) is installed on all nodes.
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The following ports must be accessible between all nodes (see [configuration options](#configuration-options) to change these):
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- 51820 UDP
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- 7946 UDP and TCP
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Install `wesher` on all nodes with go >= 1.11:
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```
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$ GO111MODULE=on go get github.com/costela/wesher
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```
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On the first node (assuming `$GOPATH/bin` is in the `$PATH`):
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```
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# wesher
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```
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Running the command above on a terminal will currently output a generated cluster key, like:
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```
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new cluster key generated: XXXXX
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```
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Then, on any further node:
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```
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# wesher --cluster-key XXXXX --join x.x.x.x
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```
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Where `XXXXX` is the base64 encoded 256 bit key printed by the step above and `x.x.x.x` is the hostname or IP of any of
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the nodes already joined to the mesh cluster.
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*Note*: `wireguard` - and therefore `wesher` - need root access.
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## Features
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The `wesher` tool builds a cluster and manages the configuration of wireguard on each node to create peer-to-peer
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connections between all nodes, thus forming a full mesh VPN.
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This approach may not scale for hundreds of nodes (benchmarks accepted 😉), but is sufficiently performant to join
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several nodes across multiple cloud providers, or simply to secure inter-node comunication in a single public-cloud.
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### Automatic Key management
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The wireguard private keys are created on startup for each node and the respective public keys are then broadcast
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across the cluster.
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The control-plane cluster communication is secured with a pre-shared AES-256 key. This key can be be automatically
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created during startup of the first node in a cluster, or it can be provided (see [configuration](#configuration-options)).
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The cluster key must then be sent to other nodes via a out-of-band secure channel (e.g. ssh, cloud-init, etc).
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Once set, the cluster key is saved locally and reused on the next startup.
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### Automatic IP address management
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The overlay IP address of each node is selected out of a private network (`10.0.0.0/8` by default) and is consistently
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hashed based on the hostname, meaning a host will always receive the same overlay IP address (see [limitations](#overlay-ip-collisions)
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of this approach below). The hostname is also used by the underlying cluster management (using [memberlist](https://github.com/hashicorp/memberlist))
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to identify nodes and must therefore be unique in the cluster.
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To ease intra-node communication, `wesher` also adds entries to `/etc/hosts` for each other node. See [configuration](#configuration-options)
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below for how to disable this behavior.
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### Restoring state
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If a node in the cluster is restarted, it will attempt to re-join the last-known nodes using the same cluster key.
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This means a restart requires no manual intervention.
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## Configuration options
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All options can be passed either as command-line flags or environment variables:
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| Option | Env | Description | Default |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| `--cluster-key KEY` | WESHER_CLUSTER_KEY | shared key for cluster membership; must be 32 bytes base64 encoded; will be generated if not provided | autogenerated/loaded |
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| `--join HOST,...` | WESHER_JOIN | comma separated list of hostnames or IP addresses to existing cluster members; if not provided, will attempt resuming any known state or otherwise wait for further members | |
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| `--init` | WESHER_INIT | whether to explicitly (re)initialize the cluster; any known state from previous runs will be forgotten | `false` |
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| `--bind-addr ADDR` | WESHER_BIND_ADDR | IP address to bind to for cluster membership | autodetected |
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| `--cluster-port PORT` | WESHER_CLUSTER_PORT | port used for membership gossip traffic (both TCP and UDP); must be the same across cluster | `7946` |
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| `--wireguard-port PORT` | WESHER_WIREGUARD_PORT | port used for wireguard traffic (UDP); must be the same across cluster | `51820` |
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| `--overlay-net ADDR/MASK` | WESHER_OVERLAY_NET | the network in which to allocate addresses for the overlay mesh network (CIDR format); smaller networks increase the chance of IP collision | `10.0.0.0/8` |
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| `--interface DEV` | WESHER_INTERFACE | name of the wireguard interface to create and manage | `wgoverlay` |
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| `--no-etc-hosts` | WESHER_NO_ETC_HOSTS | whether to skip writing hosts entries for each node in mesh | `false` |
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| `--log-level LEVEL` | WESHER_LOG_LEVEL | set the verbosity (one of debug/info/warn/error) | `warn` |
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## Security considerations
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The decision of whom to allow in the mesh is made by [memberlist](https://github.com/hashicorp/memberlist) and is secured by a
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cluster-wide pre-shared key.
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Compromise of this key will allow an attacker to:
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- access services exposed on the overlay network
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- impersonate and/or disrupt traffic to/from other nodes
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It will not, however, allow the attacker access to decrypt the traffic between other nodes.
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This pre-shared key is currently static, set up during cluster bootstrapping, but will - in a future version - be
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rotated for improved security.
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## Current known limitations
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### Overlay IP collisions
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Since the assignment of IPs on the overlay network is currently decided by the individual node and implemented as a
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naive hashing of the hostname, there can be no guarantee two hosts will not generate the same overlay IPs.
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This limitation may be worked around in a future version.
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### Split-brain
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Once a cluster is joined, there is currently no way to distinguish a failed node from an intentionally removed one.
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This is partially by design: growing and shrinking your cluster dynamically (e.g. via autoscaling) should be as easy
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as possible.
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However, this does mean longer connection loss between any two parts of the cluster (e.g. across a WAN link between
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different cloud providers) can lead to a split-brain scenario where each side thinks the other side is simply "gone".
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There is currently no clean solution for this problem, but one could work around it by designating edge nodes which
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periodically restart `wesher` with the `--join` option pointing to the other side.
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Future versions might include the notion of a "static" node to more cleanly avoid this.
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