This script automates the process of setting up a Wireguard Point-To-Point VPN tunnel on OPNsense to connect to PIA's NextGen Wireguard servers.

It will create a Wireguard Instance and a Peer on your OPNsense deployment automatically. It will then maintain the tunnel to keep it up and connected, with an automated check every 5 minutes.

You can also create a CRON job, allowing you to manually change the PIA server you are connected to.

Warning: This is for Advanced Users

1. OPNsense 23.7.10 or later
2. WireGuard Plugin Installed
3. HTTPS WebUI enabled
   1. System: Settings: Administration -> Web GUI
   2. Protocol: HTTPS
4. Secure Shell Access enabled (This can be reverted once the tunnel is working.)
   1. System: Settings: Administration -> Secure Shell
   2. Enable Secure Shell
   3. Permit root user login
   4. Permit password login

If an older version of the script is already installed, jump to the Updating section

1. Create a new user called something on the lines of "WireguardAPI"
   1. Go to System: Access: Users
   2. Click the Plus (Add) on the top right
   3. Username: WireguardAPI
   4. Password: leave empty
   5. Tick Generate a scrambled password to prevent local database logins for this user.
   6. Scroll to the bottom and click Save
2. Now that the user is created we can give it permissions and generate an API key pair
   1. Scroll down to you see Effective Privileges, you want to give it the following permissions:
      • Firewall: Alias: Edit
      • Firewall: Aliases
      • System: Static Routes
      • VPN: Wireguard
   2. Click the Plus sign on API Keys, it'll download the keys in a txt file. We'll leverage this later.
   3. Click Save
3. SSH to OPNsense and drop in to a terminal via option 8.
4. As root, run the below commands:
   • fetch -o /conf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FingerlessGlov3s/OPNsensePIAWireguard/main/PIAWireguard.py
   • fetch -o /conf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FingerlessGlov3s/OPNsensePIAWireguard/main/ca.rsa.4096.crt
   • fetch -o /usr/local/opnsense/service/conf/actions.d https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FingerlessGlov3s/OPNsensePIAWireguard/main/actions_piawireguard.conf
5. Download the latest Release from GitHub to your computer, to ensure it's a stable release
   1. https://github.com/FingerlessGlov3s/OPNsensePIAWireguard/releases
6. Edit the PIAWireguard.json file using Notepad++ or your favourite IDE.
   1. The following variables need to be filled in:
      • opnsenseURL Should only need to change this if you use a different TCP Port for the WebUI or changed the Listen Interfaces, the provided URL is correct if you've left those unchanged.
      • opnsenseKey WireguardAPI key you downloaded from step 2.2 apikeys.txt
      • opnsenseSecret WireguardAPI secret you downloaded from step 2.2 apikeys.txt
      • piaUsername Your PIA username
      • piaPassword Your PIA password
      • instances As we support creation of multiple tunnels, Example config has one instance but you can have as many as you like. The instances are key value pairs. Change instancename to something like london if you using the uk region since but the instance name can be what you'd like it to be.
      • regionId Change to your PIA region id (see below for details)
      • portForward Enable port forwarding (note region support required)
      • opnsenseWGPort outgoing port for OPNsense, this needs to be different for each tunnel and not already be in use for something else on OPNsense
   2. Region ID info
      • You can get your PIA region id by running ListRegions.py on your local device.
      • If you don't have Python installed on your local device you can use this Online Python Tool
        • Copy the contents of the file and then click Run. This will list the name and region id of each PIA region, for you choose from.
      • It is also possible to get PIA region ids running the main script using the argument --listregions
7. Copy the PIAWireguard.json file to /conf/ on your OPNsense router using SCP or Filezilla etc, make sure you using the root user of OPNsense when you connect, otherwise you'll get access denied messages.
   • Example scp .\PIAWireguard.json [email protected]:/conf/PIAWireguard.json
8. SSH to OPNsense and drop in to a terminal option 8. (If you've closed the previous SSH connection.)
9. Run the following commands
   • Enable the file to be executed: chmod +x /conf/PIAWireguard.py
   • Restarted the service: service configd restart
   • Execute the script, in debug mode with output: /conf/PIAWireguard.py --debug
10. Go to Interfaces: Assignments in OPNsense, so we can assign the new interface for the tunnel/tunnels
    1. At the bottom of the interfaces you'll see New interface, on the drop down select wg0, unless you already had one set up then select wg1 etc...
    2. Give it a description like WAN_PIAWG
    3. Once selected click the + button
    4. A new WAN_PIAWG_INSTANCENAME interface will show on the list, which will be the new wg interface, click on it to edit.
    5. Tick Enable Interface, click save and Apply Changes. nothing else
11. Go to System: Gateways: Single, so we can set up the PIA gateway for the tunnel/tunnels
    1. At the bottom right click the + button to add a new gateway
    2. Make sure Disabled is unchecked
    3. Enter the name WAN_PIA_INSTANCENAME_IPv4
    4. Interface select WAN_PIAWG_INSTANCENAME
    5. Tick Far Gateway
    6. Untick Disable Gateway Monitoring
    7. Click Save and Apply Changes
12. Also reccomended you set your Main gateway to have a lower Priority number than the created ones for the PIA tunnel
13. Go back to the SSH terminal, run the following command
    • /conf/PIAWireguard.py --debug --changeserver instancename
14. Now OPNsense should be setup to use the PIA VPN tunnel as an internet gateway. If you go back in to System: Gateways: Single, you should see WAN_PIA_INSTANCENAME_IPv4 now has a gateway IP and is pinging
15. Now we need to set up a cron job to make sure the tunnel says up, and changes server when necessary. Go to System: Settings: Cron
    1. Click the plus button at the bottom right of the table
    2. Enter */5 in the minute box
    3. Enter * in the hours box
    4. Select PIA WireGuard Monitor Tunnels on the command dropdown
    5. Give it a Description of your choice.
    6. Click Save
16. Last thing we need to set up is maximum MSS for TCP packets, which is 40 bytes smaller than the MTU of WireGuard. By default Wireguard uses 1420 bytes MTU. So we need to set an MSS maximum of 1380. (Without this you may have issues loading websites or slow speeds).
    1. Goto Firewall: Settings: Normalization
    2. Click Add
    3. Interface select WAN_PIA_INSTANCENAME_IPv4
    4. Enter Description of Maximum MSS for PIA WireGuard Tunnel
    5. Max MSS to 1380
    6. Click Save (you will notice it'll now list this as OPT rather than the interface name, don't worry it's still correct, just edit it to verify you made the right selection)
    7. Click Apply Changes
17. OPNsense should now look after the tunnel itself encase the tunnel disconnects, every 5 minutes it'll check the status and change server if the server has gone down.
18. You'll need to create your own NAT and Firewall rules to use this tunnel, an advanced user should be able to do this.
    • There is now a guide on OPNsense Docs, which will help you here. Step 7 onwards.

Note: If your having speed issues, you may need to change PIA server region or lower the default MTU from 1420, advanced users should understand how to do this.

Since 2024/01/05 the script has gone a complete overhaul. The major change is the script is now able to handle multiple instances of the tunnel. IE you can establish connections to multiple regions.

The main impact, is that our InstanceName needs to be unique since we'll have multiple instances.

• {instancename} is replaced with the name for your specific instance in the config file, example london would be come pia-london for the WireGuard instance name. See Example config below.

Update Steps:

1. Delete the current cron entry.
2. Populate the new PIAWireguard.json based on your old config file
3. Upload new PIAWireguard.py and PIAWireguard.json file to /conf/
4. Upload new actions_piawireguard.conf file to /usr/local/opnsense/service/conf/actions.d/
5. Run service configd restart to refresh new actions file via SSH
6. There's a few bits in the WireGuard section in OPNsense you need to rename
   1. Rename current WG instance name to pia-{instancename} from PIA
   2. Rename current WG peer to pia-{instancename}-server from PIA-Server
7. If your using port forwarding rename the alias to pia_{instancename}_port from PIA_Port
8. Ensure you applied all changes
9. Run the new script via SSH in debug mode and ensure it's working python3 PIAWireguard.py --debug, should return instancename tunnel up - last handshake x seconds ago as the last log entry
10. Then run again but this time forcing a it to change server python3 PIAWireguard.py --debug --changeserver instancename, to ensure all changes will apply and work.
11. If all is working correctly, then re-create the cron entry, see above for example as command name changed to PIA WireGuard Monitor Tunnels
12. Now double check all your configured routes and rules, ensure IP leaking isn't happening etc

See releases, starting from the version you have installed, to see if there's anything you need to do, usually it's just upgrade the py script itself. Release description will have the required commands, and notes for upgrading.

Example config

{
    "opnsenseURL": "https://127.0.0.1:443",
    "opnsenseKey": "/FQDXExojUWWuBdnPEPCUt98vnrQOdLxFqypTIEhE41304uYgA68ZJw7fveXBpXkMHqiAdx04cRAlLwh",
    "opnsenseSecret": "p+Gi4uE1xypuGIptbhrDylGKcNd9vaRpQ298eH0k6SFRQ6Crw4fLk0cIA0eSuKvWEN0hKx8JaIGUtNPq",
    "piaUsername": "p1234567",
    "piaPassword": "EncryptAllTheThings",
    "tunnelGateway": null,
    "opnsenseWGPrefixName": "pia",
    "instances": {
        "london": {
            "regionId": "uk",
            "dipToken": "",
            "dip": false,
            "portForward": true,
            "opnsenseWGPort": "51815"
        }
    }
}

Note: Passwords and keys in the example are not real

You may list the arguments you can pass in to the script by doing the following "/conf/PIAWireguard.py --help` an example output is below.

usage: PIAWireguard.py [-h] [--debug] [--listregions] [--changeserver [instancename]]

Python script to automate connections to PIA's WireGuard Servers. Source:
https://github.com/FingerlessGlov3s/OPNsensePIAWireguard

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --debug               Enable debug logging
  --listregions         List available regions and their properties
  --changeserver [instancename]
                        Change server for instance name or "all" for all instances

--debug shows debug logging, to see what the script is doing or maybe not doing
--listregions lists all of the available PIA regions
--changeserver [instancename] allows you to rotate/change the server your connected to for that instance. \

Example: /conf/PIAWireguard.py --debug --changeserver instance2 will change the server that instance2 is connecting too and print all debug messages.

To use port forwarding Enable portForward variable in the json file for the intance from false to true. This will create an alias in your system called pia_instancename_port, which you can then use in your Port Forwarding rule. This alias will self update when required. If you need a way to find out this port for an internal application, you can go to the following URL of your OPNsense to get the port, as its published publicly to devices that can reach the HTTPS port of OPNsense https://opnsense.lan/wg0_port.txt

Note: Not all server locations support port forwarding.

If you have purchased a Dedicated IP from PIA. Add your DIP token to dipToken in the json file for the instance, then to enable the usage simply set dip to true. Remember PIA only give you the DIP token once, so make sure you have backed up the token somewhere.

I have developed this functionality by reserve engineering the PIA client, at this moment in time manual connections for DIP is not offically supported by PIA.

Note: I have not tested DIP in a while, so if this works for you let me know, if not create a GitHub issue.

In some deployments, people may be running dual or even triple WAN configurations, in this case due to how WireGuard is configured in FreeBSD (OPNsense), it'll route the PIA tunnel over the default WAN interface. Some people will want to change this to use another WAN interface as the gateway to route the PIA tunnel over.

To accommodate this functionality, this is built in to the script. You will need to get the name of your wanted gateway, for example WAN2_DHCP, then set this as the tunnelGateway variable value in the json file (value needs to be in double quotes). When the script then runs it'll add/change a static route to enforce the PIA tunnel to use that gateway (interface).

You'll find your gateway names in System: Gateways: Single, making sure its the IPv4 one.

You will find that if the VPN tunnel isn't up, that traffic that should flow over it, will instead head straight out your WAN interface. You can setup a "VPN Kill Switch" to prevent this.

1. Firewall - Rules - WAN
2. Create a new rule
   1. Action - Block
   2. Quick - Apply the action immediately on match
   3. Interface - WAN
   4. Direction - Out
   5. Description - "Don't let traffic headed for VPN out the WAN"
   6. Match local tag = NO_WAN_EGRESS
   7. Save this rule
   8. Repeat for other WAN interfaces, if you have a dual WAN setup, for most people this is not needed.
3. Firewall - Rules - LAN (Or whatever interface has VPN rules)
   1. Edit the rule where the gateway is the VPN tunnel
   2. Click Advanced features Show/Hide
   3. Under Set local tag add in NO_WAN_EGRESS
   4. Save this rule

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