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Install TVPN on MikroTik (Docker)

This page covers the TVPN-specific parts of running TVPN as a container on a MikroTik router — MikroTik’s own container docs cover the router-side setup (bridges, internet access) this page doesn’t. Tested on a MikroTik RB5009 running RouterOS 7.

Set up the mount and config

Configure a mount inside the MikroTik console:

/container/mounts add name=tvpn-data src=/var/lib/somewear/tvpn dst=/var/lib/somewear/tvpn

Create a config.toml with at least:

[api]
key = "<the-api-key>"


# Log to stdout so mikrotik captures the output
[log]
stdout = true


# This is needed since RouterOS emits some rtnetlink messages
# which are non-standard and break parsing in the default mode
[interfaces]
lookup-strategy = "poll"

Copy the config file to the router:

scp config.toml admin@<ip>/disk1/tvpn/config.toml

Create the interface

/interface/veth/add name=veth-tvpn address=172.17.0.2/16 gateway=172.17.0.1

Set up the container

TVPN runs as an arm64 Docker container: us-docker.pkg.dev/somewear-souvla/tvpn/somewear-tvpn.

  1. Point the container environment at Somewear’s registry:
/container/config/set registry-url=https://us-docker.pkg.dev
  1. Create the container. If you hit an error, see Troubleshooting below:
/container/add \
    remote-image=somewear-souvla/tvpn/somewear-tvpn \
    interface=veth-tvpn \
    mounts=tvpn-data \
    start-on-boot=yes
  1. Wait for the image to download (a couple of minutes). Run this until you see import done:
/container/log/print
  1. Start the container:
/container/start somewear-tvpn

Troubleshooting

failure: not allowed by device-mode — containers are disabled on this router. Enable them:

/system/device-mode/update container=yes

Reset the router, then re-run the container add command.

Configuration

TVPN’s configuration file is at /var/lib/somewear/tvpn/config.toml. Edit it and restart TVPN (\container restart where name="tvpn") to apply changes. Run tvpn -h for the full list of settings.

Here’s a complete example:

[api]
key = "wk_1a2b3c4d5e6f:sk_9f8e7d6c5b4a3210"
# The API hostname. You only need to change this if you're using Somewear Self-Hosted
host = "api.somewear.co"


[log]
# The log level: trace, debug, info, warn, error, or off.
level = "info"
# The log style: compact or logfmt.
style = "logfmt"
# Whether to write to stdout.
stdout = true


[log.filesystem]
# The maximum size in MB to use for log files.
max-size-mb = 50
# The maximum number of log files to use.
max-files = 5


[tls]
# TLS cryptographic profile: PQ_HYBRID (default), CNSA_2_0, or CNSA_1_0.
profile = "PQ_HYBRID"
# TLS session rekey interval in seconds; sessions older than this trigger re-handshake.
rekey-interval = 3600
# When true, allow loading TLS certificates from filesystem as a fallback
# when IPC cert bundles are unavailable. Defaults to false.
cert-files = false


[endpoint-id.rotation]
# Endpoint ID rotation interval in seconds.
interval = 86400


[traffic-policy]
# Traffic policy toggle, default is false. When true, the daemon attempts to load traffic-policy.toml.
enabled = false


[tun]
# The MTU to use on the TUN device.
mtu = 1400


[interfaces]
# The list of interfaces which should not be used to route traffic through or receive traffic from.
disabled = ["eth1", "wlan2"]
# The list of interfaces that would be disabled by tvpn based on their name but
# we want to allow them to be used. Interfaces in here are still bound to the
# usual rules, like whether it's up, operational, etc.
allowed = ["br-lan"]
# Whether to allow virtual interfaces.
allow-virtual = false


[gateway-routes]
# Whether to enable the use of literal routes. This is needed on every endpoint if you're using literal routes
allow-literal = true
# The list of literal gateway routes.
literal = ["192.168.10.0/24"]


# The list of virtual routes; each maps a physical range to a virtual range.
[[gateway-routes.virtual]]
physical = "192.168.1.0/24"
virtual = "100.127.0.0/24"


[[gateway-routes.virtual]]
physical = "10.0.2.0/24"
virtual = "100.127.1.0/24"


[relays]
# The list of relay servers to use.
servers = ["uswest1-0.relay.somewear.app", "uscentral1-0.relay.somewear.app", "useast4-0.relay.somewear.app"]