Continued use of `wg-quick save` and SaveConfig=true?

[Adrian Larsen]

Hi Maarten,

Thanks for your answer..


On 04/01/2021 21:05, Maarten de Vries wrote:
>
> On 04-01-2021 19:41, Adrian Larsen wrote:
>> Hi Jason,
>>
>> 1) From a manual operation point of view, I feel more comfortable if 
>> an Operator uses:
>>
>> # wg set wg0 peer ... allowed-ips ...
>> # wg-quick save wg0
>>
>> rather than editing manually the config file.
>>
>> In case the Wire Guard is running multiple peers with production 
>> traffic, I think an Operator can do less damage using the commands if 
>> something goes wrong.
>
>
> Another solution could be to have a command line tool that modifies 
> the configuration file. Kinda like `wg set` except for a config file 
> instead of a live interface. Would tooling like that alleviate your 
> concerns of an operator messing up the configuration file?
>
Yes, one of them.  :-)

The second potential problem is if the change is wrong, it is better not 
to permanent save it before to test. This is a common scenario:

1- The operator does a change using "wg set" on "x remote node"

2- The setting is incorrect and the "x remote node" becomes isolated. 
The operator cannot access to it any more.

3- Last resource solution: Due to the change was not saved, rebooting "x 
remote node" will allow the Operator to have access to it again.

>
>>
>> 2) From automation point of view, still I think that is easy to use 
>> the commands (on an script):
>>
>> # wg set wg0 peer ... allowed-ips ...
>> # wg-quick save wg0
>>
>> rather than using "sed" or "awk" to modify the config file.
>
>
> Yeah, sed and awk aren't necessarily the nicest solutions. Although 
> they would work fine in practice. But maybe a tool as mentioned above  
> could solve this. Even just a script as pretty front-end to the right 
> sed/awk commands could be useful here.
>
> For automation, (re-)applying a config file does have an important 
> advantage over `wg set ... && wg-quick save ...`: you can be sure that 
> all changes are applied, even if the tunnel was temporarily gone for 
> some reason. Worst case, the changes are kept in the config file and 
> applied when the interface is created again.
>
> If you try to do `wg set ... && wg-quick save ...` while the WireGuard 
> interface doesn't exist, the changes are lost. (Or you have to fall 
> back to modifying the config file by hand, but we didn't want that.)
>
> This advantage may not matter for your application, I can't really 
> know that. I suppose that depends on the kind of changes that are made 
> to the configuration at runtime.
>
> -- Maarten
>
>>
>> My 2 cents.
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>> On 04/01/2021 16:16, Maarten de Vries wrote:
>>> On 03-01-2021 20:59, Chris Osicki wrote:
>>>> On Sat, Jan 02, 2021 at 03:37:09PM +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I was thinking recently that most people have switched from a 
>>>>> model of
>>>>> updating the runtime configuration and then reading that back into a
>>>>> config file, to editing the config file and then syncing that with 
>>>>> the
>>>>> runtime config. In other words, people have moved from doing:
>>>>>
>>>>> # wg set wg0 peer ... allowed-ips ...
>>>>> # wg-quick save wg0
>>>>>
>>>>> To doing:
>>>>>
>>>>> # vim /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
>>>>> # wg syncconf wg0 <(wg-quick strip wg0)
>>>>>
>>>>> I think this is mostly a positive change too in terms of reliability.
>>>>> Reading back the runtime configuration was always a bit hit or miss,
>>>>> and I suspect that more times than not people have been confused by
>>>>> SaveConfig=true.
>>>>>
>>>>> That raises the question: are there good uses left for 
>>>>> SaveConfig=true
>>>>> and `wg-quick save` that warrant keeping the feature around?
>>>>> Temporarily caching a roamed endpoint IP, perhaps, but how helpful is
>>>>> that?
>>>>>
>>>>> I haven't thought too deeply about this in order to be wedded to one
>>>>> outcome over the other yet, but seeing some confusion today, 
>>>>> again, in
>>>>> #wireguard over the feature made me wonder.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any opinions on this? Any one on this list actively use this feature
>>>>> and see replacements for it (e.g. syncconf) as clearly inferior?
>>>>>
>>>>> Jason
>>>> Hi Jason
>>>>
>>>> Being an old fashioned Unix admin, ~30 years spent in this job, I 
>>>> vote for the traditional way of doing it:
>>>> change the config file and let the application reread it.
>>>> I think the KISS principle is still valid ;-)
>>>
>>> I totally agree. Reloading the config file is much nicer :)
>>>
>>> I also don't need to save roaming endpoints. All WireGuard tunnels I 
>>> use have at-least one side with a fixed endpoint. And if that's not 
>>> the case I imagine you probably need a more complicated solution 
>>> than wg-quick.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the excellent software, Jason!
>>>
>>> I also totally agree with this. WireGuard has made my life a lot 
>>> easier :)
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Maarten
>>>