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Troubleshooting client issues

This document offers practical tips and insights to help you debug various problems, ensuring a seamless user experience.

NetBird agent status

The netbird agent is a daemon service that runs in the background; it provides information about peers connected and about the NetBird control services. You can check the status of the agent with the following command:

netbird status --detail

This will output the following information:

Peers detail:
 server-a.netbird.cloud:
  NetBird IP: 100.75.232.118/32
  Public key: kndklnsakldvnsld+XeRF4CLr/lcNF+DSdkd/t0nZHDqmE=
  Status: Connected
  -- detail --
  Connection type: P2P
  Direct: true
  ICE candidate (Local/Remote): host/host
  ICE candidate endpoints (Local/Remote): 10.128.0.35:51820/10.128.0.54:51820
  Last connection update: 20 seconds ago
  Last Wireguard handshake: 19 seconds ago
  Transfer status (received/sent) 6.1 KiB/20.6 KiB
  Quantum resistance: false
  Routes: 10.0.0.0/24
  Latency: 37.503682ms

 server-b.netbird.cloud:
  NetBird IP: 100.75.226.48/32
  Public key: Mi6jtrK5Tokndklnsakldvnsld+XeRF4CLr/lcNF+DSdkd=
  Status: Connected
  -- detail --
  Connection type: Relayed
  Direct: false
  ICE candidate (Local/Remote): relay/host
  ICE candidate endpoints (Local/Remote): 108.54.10.33:60434/10.128.0.12:51820
  Last connection update: 20 seconds ago
  Last Wireguard handshake: 18 seconds ago
  Transfer status (received/sent) 6.1 KiB/20.6 KiB
  Quantum resistance: false
  Routes: -
  Latency: 37.503682ms

OS: darwin/amd64
Daemon version: 0.27.4
CLI version: 0.27.4
Management: Connected to https://api.netbird.io:443
Signal: Connected to https://signal.netbird.io:443
Relays:
  [stun:turn.netbird.io:5555] is Available
  [turns:turn.netbird.ioo:443?transport=tcp] is Available
Nameservers:
  [8.8.8.8:53, 8.8.4.4:53] for [.] is Available
FQDN: maycons-mbp-2.netbird.cloud
NetBird IP: 100.75.143.239/16
Interface type: Kernel
Quantum resistance: false
Routes: -
Peers count: 2/2 Connected

As you can see, the output shows the peers connected, the NetBird IP address, the public key, the connection status, and the connection type. The status will also report if there is an issue connecting to the relay servers, the management server, or the signal server.

As for Peers, the status will show the following information:

  • Connection type: P2P, Relayed, where relayed connections indicate a limitation in the network that prevents a direct connection between the peers.
  • Direct: true/false, where true indicates a direct connection between the peers without a local proxy. This case is common when the local peer is allocating the relay connection.
  • ICE candidate (Local/Remote): relay/host, where relay indicates that the local peer is using a relay connection and host indicates that the remote peer is using a direct connection.
  • Last Wireguard handshake: Indicating the last time the Wireguard handshake was performed. Usually, this is performed every 2 minutes, and if you don't see an update here or if the value is empty, that indicates that the connection wasn't possible yet.
  • Transfer status (received/sent): Indicating the amount of data received and sent by the peer. This is useful to check if the connection is being used.

See more details about the status command here.

Getting client logs

By default, client logs are located in the /var/log/netbird/client.log file on macOS and Linux and in the C:\ProgramData\netbird\client.log file on Windows.

You can analyze the logs to identify the root cause of the problem. If you need help, open a github issue and attach the logs.

Debug bundle

A debug archive containing the recent logs and the status at the time of execution can be generated with the following command.

Adding the -A flag will anonymize the logs, removing sensitive information such as public IP addresses and domain names. Adding the -S flag will add system information like network routes and interfaces

netbird debug bundle -AS

This will output the path of the generated file, which can be accessed with administrative privileges.

Debug for a specific time

To capture logs for a specific time period, you can use the debug for command. This will generate a debug bundle after the specified time has elapsed.

netbird debug for 5m -AS

To capture any issues arising during the up and down processes, this will set the log level to TRACE and bring netbird up and down up to a few times. After 5 minutes the netbird status will be restored to the previous state and the debug bundle will be generated.

Enabling debug logs on agent

Logs can be temporarily set using the following command.

netbird debug log level debug

or

netbird debug log level trace

The next time the daemon is restarted, the log level will return to the configured level.

Using netbird down and netbird up will not reset the log level.

To permanently set the log level, see the following sections.

On Linux with systemd

The default systemd unit file reads a set of environment variables from the path /etc/sysconfig/netbird. You can add the following line to the file to enable debug logs:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/sysconfig
echo 'NB_LOG_LEVEL=debug' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysconfig/netbird
sudo systemctl restart netbird

On Other Linux and MacOS

sudo netbird service stop
sudo netbird service uninstall
sudo netbird service install --log-level debug # or trace
sudo netbird service start

On Windows

You need to run the following commands with an elevated Powershell window.

netbird service stop
netbird service uninstall
netbird service install --log-level debug # or trace
netbird service start

On Docker

You can set the environment variable NB_LOG_LEVEL to debug to enable debug logs.

docker run --rm --name PEER_NAME --hostname PEER_NAME --cap-add=NET_ADMIN --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN --cap-add=SYS_RESOURCE -d \
-e NB_SETUP_KEY=<SETUP KEY> -e NB_LOG_LEVEL=debug -v netbird-client:/etc/netbird netbirdio/netbird:latest

On Android

Enable the ADB in the developer menu on the Android device. In the app set the the Trace log level setting - it is a checkbox in the advanced menu. With the ADB tool, you can get the logs from your device. The ADB is part of the SDK platform tools pack (zip file). You can download it from here. Please extract it and run the next command in the case of Linux:

sudo adb logcat -v time | grep GoLog

Running the agent in foreground mode

You can run the agent in foreground mode to see the logs in the terminal. This is useful to debugging issues with the agent.

Linux and MacOS

sudo netbird service stop
sudo netbird up -F

Windows

On Windows, the agent depends on the Wireguard's wintun.dll and can only be executed as a system account. To run the agent in foreground mode, you need to use a tool called PSExec.

Once you have downloaded and extracted psexec open an elevated Powershell window:

netbird service stop
.\PsExec64.exe -s cmd.exe /c "netbird up -F --log-level debug > c:\windows\temp\netbird.out.log 2>&1"

In case you need to configure environment variables, you need to add them as system variables so they get picked up by the agent on the next psexec run:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PIONS_LOG_DEBUG", "all", "Machine")

Enabling WireGuard in user space

Sometimes, you want to test NetBird running on userspace mode instead of a kernel module. That can be a check to see if there is a problem with NetBird's firewall management in kernel mode.

You must run the agent in foreground mode and set the environment variable NB_WG_KERNEL_DISABLED to true.

sudo netbird service stop
sudo bash -c 'NB_WG_KERNEL_DISABLED=true netbird up -F'  > /tmp/netbird.log

Debugging GRPC

The NetBird agent communicates with the Management and Signal servers using the GRPC framework. With these parameters, you can set verbose logging for this service.

sudo netbird service stop
sudo bash -c 'GRPC_GO_LOG_VERBOSITY_LEVEL=99 GRPC_GO_LOG_SEVERITY_LEVEL=info netbird up -F' > /tmp/netbird.log

Debugging ICE connections

The Netbird agent communicates with other peers through the Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol described in the RFC 8445. To debug the connection procedure, set verbose logging for the the Pion/ICE library with the PIONS_LOG_DEBUG or PIONS_LOG_TRACE variable.

Environment variable

PIONS_LOG_DEBUG=all
NB_LOG_LEVEL=debug

sudo netbird service stop
sudo bash -c 'PIONS_LOG_DEBUG=all NB_LOG_LEVEL=debug netbird up -F' > /tmp/netbird.log