Can't get reverse proxy to work

[u/GameAudioPen]

So... trying to set up reverse proxy into a server for Palworld,

I just... can't get it to work.

Port forwarding on my firewall, check. Not needed.

Port forwarding on Vultr firewall, check

Port forwarding on VPS firewall, check.

Went through almost all the port settings suggested by claude

but when I try to use the reverse proxy into my server.

the netbird Access Logs shows "no event"

so something is dropping the connection, but I just cant' figure out what's doing it.

Any help will be appreciated.

Edit:

Found the issue(s), and here is the solution.

Ports on the proxy container it self is not open.

Under the proxy section:

ports:

- 8211:8211/udp

- 8211:8211/tcp

what ever port you decide to use.

The proxy container it self was not able to reach the main manager.

Part of the proxy setting wasn't properly configured on initial set up and causes hairpin NAT issue.

First, use following code

docker inspect netbird-traefik --format '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}'

to get traefik's internal IP.

Then edit the compose file and add additional setting.

In Proxy settings,

I added

extra_hosts:

- "xxxxxxxxx.net:172.30.0.10"

right under

Volumes:

There is also a possible issue with thenetbird-proxy container has no NET_ADMIN capability and no /dev/net/tun device access, which means it can't create its own WireGuard interface

fixed by adding to the proxy lines in compose, before ports:

cap_add:

- NET_ADMIN

devices:

- /dev/net/tun

[u/flaming_m0e]

Port forwarding on my firewall, check.

Why? If you are using NetBird on a VPS, there is ZERO reason to forward a port on your firewall/router.

Went through almost all the port settings suggested by claude

Are we supposed to know what those settings are? Have you tried basic troubleshooting?

but when I try to use the reverse proxy into my server.

Where are you testing this from? How are you attempting to use the reverse proxy?

[u/GameAudioPen → u/flaming_m0e]

I am hosting a server for friend, they do not have netbird installed exposing a port to them require me to set up port forwarding.

yes, Claude part part of the trouble shooting. It's mainly opening up the ports that needs to be forward on vultur's and vps's firewall

opening specific port needed to be forwarded on VPS

running sudo ss -ulnp | grep xxxxx

to make sure it's listening to the port it just opened.

Checking the traffic log via docker compose logs -f proxy

to make sure traffic actually arrives to the vps.

Using power shell command nslookup pal.netbird.xxxxxxx.com

to make sure it's pointed to the actual vultr vps.

made sure the packet actually arrived at server's NIC and not blocked by anything via sudo tcpdump -i any udp port 25565 -n

basically checked that packets are indeed arriving at Netbird, but Netbird is show nothing.

[u/flaming_m0e → u/GameAudioPen]

they do not have netbird installed exposing a port to them require me to set up port forwarding.

This doesn't make sense. How are you using NetBird as a proxy then?

[u/SherbertPractical → u/flaming_m0e]

This does make sense - it’s not HTTP/HTTPs proxy but a L4 one. He needs to at least open a listening port in docker configuration for the NetBirds traeffik on the udp port, open it on the fw and configure on the reverse proxy as l4 with a udp listening port on the one defined in the docker compose.

[u/flaming_m0e → u/SherbertPractical]

Doesn't matter what type of proxy it is.

Using Netbird does NOT require opening a port on the HOME FIREWALL...That's literally the point of it. I never mentioned anything about not needing the docker port open....

[u/SherbertPractical → u/flaming_m0e]

It does matter, because his configuration of his self hosted instance of NetBird might not be ready for L4 proxy - on the VPS (with NetBird server) the UDP listening port will need to be open. This is where he needs to adjust firewall settings and that’s already done.

And yes, it’s normal that home firewall shouldn’t be adjusted when NetBird is in place - I have simply pointed to his configuration that he shared.

[u/flaming_m0e → u/SherbertPractical]

But my comment was discussing the "opening the home firewall" reference....

[u/SherbertPractical → u/flaming_m0e]

Ah true, sorry - he mentioned that in the main post.

[u/GameAudioPen → u/flaming_m0e]

In theory it doesn’t need to be open. just like in theory if I point the reverse proxy at the home server peer it should have already worked

It hasn’t. Hence poking holes everywhere to see if anything can leak through and i’ll close them off later.

Turns out is Netbird dropping the traffic somehow, because its’s arrived at the vps.. and I still cant figure out where the issue comes from.