Question
Use Netbird VPN to connect across DO private network
- Posted on January 1, 2025
- Virtual Private Network
Asked by Robert Horgan
I have multiple Ubuntu 24.04 instances hosted at DO. I have setup a Netbird infrastructure and added the public addresses of my DO droplets. I can connect to them without problems from the Internet.
I would like to configure the droplets so that when the communicate between themselves the VPN link will use the Private network provided by DO.
I have tried adding routes but this was not successful:
ip add route netbird_address via remote_droplet_private_address
Is it possible to achieve my goal?
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.
Become a contributor for community
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.
DigitalOcean Documentation
Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.
Resources for startups and SMBs
The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.
The developer cloud
Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.
Get started for free
Sign up and get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.*
*This promotional offer applies to new accounts only.
Heya, @robert429b8ca91
Yes, this should be doable. Add a route to direct traffic for Netbird addresses through the private DO network. For example:
Replace
<Netbird_Address>with the VPN address of the remote droplet and<Private_IP_of_Target_Droplet>with its private IP.If your Netbird setup includes a default route (e.g., 0.0.0.0/0 via the VPN), this may override your private network routing. To avoid conflicts:
Exclude the DO private network range (e.g.,
10.0.0.0/8) from Netbird’s default route.Update your Netbird configuration to include specific routes for other network traffic.
Ping the private IPs of your droplets to confirm that inter-droplet communication uses the private network:
tracerouteto check the path taken by packets:You can then temporarily disable the Netbird VPN or private network on one droplet to ensure the fallback to the appropriate route.
Hope that this helps!