Setting up a GRE tunnel between a Dedibox dedicated server and a Scaleway Elements Cloud Instance
Tunnel Overview
A GRE tunnel allows you to connect Scaleway Elements Instances with Dedibox dedicated servers and vice versa to exchange files over a virtual network connection that passes through the public Internet.
The Generic Routing Encapsultion (GRE) protocol is designed as a tunneling tool in order to carry any OSI Layer 3 protocol over an IP network. It creates a point-to-point connection like a virtual private network (VPN) but without adding lots of latency or overhead.
Requirements
- You have an account and are logged into console.scaleway.com
- You have configured your SSH Key
- You have a Scaleway Elements Instance
- You have a Dedibox Dedicated Server
- You have sudo privileges or access to the root user.
Setting up the Tunnel on a Scaleway Elements Instance
1 . Connect to the Cloud Instance via SSH.
2 . Create a new file called configure-tunnel.sh:
touch /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
3 . Open the file in a text editor and copy the following code into it:
nano /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
#!/bin/bash
REMOTE_IP="123.123.123.123" #Change this value to the public IP address of the remote instance
LOCAL_IP=`scw-metadata | grep "PRIVATE_IP=" | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'`
ip tunnel add tun1 mode gre remote $REMOTE_IP local $LOCAL_IP ttl 255
ip addr add 192.168.0.1 dev tun1
ip link set tun1 up
ip route add 192.168.1.0/24 dev tun1
echo "Tunnel configured."
4 . Save the file, exit the text editor and make it executable:
chmod +x /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
5 . Run the script:
/opt/configure-tunnel.sh
Setting up the Tunnel on a Dedibox Server
1 . Connect to the Dedibox dedicated server via SSH.
2 . Create a new file called configure-tunnel.sh:
touch /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
3 . Open the file in a text editor and copy the following code into it:
nano /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
#!/bin/bash
REMOTE_IP="123.123.123.123" #Change this value to the public IP address of the Scaleway Cloud Instance
LOCAL_IP="123.123.123.123" #Change this value to the public IP address of the Dedibox dedicated server
ip tunnel add tun1 mode gre remote $REMOTE_IP local $LOCAL_IP ttl 255
ip addr add 192.168.1.1 dev tun1
ip link set tun1 up
ip route add 192.168.0.0/24 dev tun1
echo "Tunnel configured."
4 . Save the file, exit the text editor and make it executable:
chmod +x /opt/configure-tunnel.sh
5 . Run the script:
/opt/configure-tunnel.sh
Testing the Tunnel
1 . Run a first test by pinging the other endpoint to see if the tunnel is working:
root@dedibox:~# ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.854 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.67 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.854 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.651 ms
--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.651/1.007/1.670/0.392 ms
root@scw-instance:~# ping 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.22 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.01 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.17 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=1.10 ms
--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.011/1.130/1.226/0.084 ms
2 . Install a web server on the Dedibox:
apt update && apt install nginx -y
3 . Enter the directory that is used to serve websites:
cd /var/www/html
4 . Download a test file into the /var/www/html directory:
wget http://ping.online.net/1000Mo.dat
5 . Install curl on the Scaleway Elements instance:
apt update && apt install curl -y
6 . Run a bandwidth test with curl:
root@scw-instance:~# curl -4 -o /dev/null http://192.168.1.1/1000Mo.dat
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 953M 100 953M 0 0 97.8M 0 0:00:09 0:00:09 --:--:-- 67.0M
As you can see in the example above the tunnel creates very low overhead and the bandwidth available for the instance can be used.
Important: For latency reasons and to avoid IP conflicts, it is not recommended to create tunnels between different regions (For example between Paris and Amsterdam).
Configuring an Automatic Start of the Tunnel on System Boot
Important: These steps have to be executed on both machines.
1 . Create a systemd script in the directory /etc/systemd/system, called configure-tunnel.service, and open it in a text editor:
nano /etc/systemd/system/configure-tunnel.service
Copy/paste the following content into the file:
[Unit]
After=network.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/configure-tunnel.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
2 . Save the file and exit the text editor.
3 . Set the file permissions, reload the systemd daemon and enable the newly created service:
chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/configure-tunnel.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable configure-tunnel.service
4 . On the next reboot systemd will run the script during the boot process to automatically configure the tunnel.
Going further
Online by Scaleway provides a wide range of Dedibox dedicated servers, with options such as Private Network, RPN-SAN, Backup, Monitoring.
When configuring the RPNv2 network on your Dedibox dedicated Servers, you are able to use the virtual network to communicate between your Scaleway Elements Instances and your Dedibox servers over a virtual network connection. This can be useful to configure services like databases that are not available on the public network and use the virtual connection to communicate between them.