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Use Netbird VPN to connect across DO private network

Posted on January 1, 2025

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?

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alexdo

January 2, 2025

Accepted Answer

Heya, @robert429b8ca91

Yes, this should be doable. Add a route to direct traffic for Netbird addresses through the private DO network. For example:

sudo ip route add <Netbird_Address> via <Private_IP_of_Target_Droplet>

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:

ping <Private_IP_of_Remote_Droplet>

Use traceroute to check the path taken by packets:

traceroute <Netbird_Address>

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!

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