Connecting Scaleway Instances with Dedibox servers

Reviewed on 03 October 2024 • Published on 22 August 2019

Dedibox
GRE-tunnel
gre

A GRE tunnel allows you to connect Scaleway Instances with Scaleway Dedibox dedicated servers and vice versa to exchange files over a virtual network connection that passes through the public internet.

The Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) protocol is designed as a tunneling tool 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.

Before you start

To complete the actions presented below, you must have:

A Scaleway account logged into the console
Owner status or IAM permissions allowing you to perform actions in the intended Organization
An SSH key
An Instance
Ordered and installed a Dedibox Dedicated server
Configured your SSH key on both machines
sudo privileges or access to the root user

Setting up the tunnel on a Scaleway Instance

Connect to the Scaleway Instance via SSH:

ssh root@your-instance-ip

Create a new file called configure-tunnel.sh:

touch /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Open the file in a text editor and copy the following code into it, making sure to replace the IP as stated:

nano /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

#!/bin/bash
REMOTE_IP="123.123.123.123" #Change this value to the public IP address of the 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."

Save the file, exit the text editor, and make it executable:

chmod +x /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Run the script:

/opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Setting up the tunnel on a Dedibox server

Connect to the Dedibox server via SSH:

ssh username@your-server-ip

Create a new file called configure-tunnel.sh:

sudo touch /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Open the file in a text editor and copy the following code into it (ensure that you replace the IPs as stated):

sudo 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."

Save the file, exit the text editor, and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Run the script:

sudo /opt/configure-tunnel.sh

Testing the tunnel

Run a first test by pinging the other endpoint to see if the tunnel is working:

username@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

Install a web server on the Dedibox:
```
sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx -y
```

Enter the directory that is used to serve websites:

cd /var/www/html

Download a test file into the /var/www/html directory:
```
sudo wget http://ping.online.net/1000Mo.dat
```
Install curl on the Instance:
```
apt update && apt install curl -y
```

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.

Tip

For latency reasons and to avoid IP conflicts, we do not recommend that you create tunnels between different regions (e.g. between Paris and Amsterdam).

Configuring the automatic start of the tunnel on system boot

Important

These steps have to be executed on both machines. You may need to use sudo for the Dedibox commands.

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

Save the file and exit the text editor.

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

On the next reboot systemd will run the script during the boot process to automatically configure the tunnel.

Going further

Scaleway provides a wide range of Dedibox dedicated servers, with options such as Private Network, RPN-SAN, backup, and monitoring.

You can use the virtual network you just set up to communicate between your Scaleway Instances, Elastic Metal servers and your Dedibox dedicated 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.