WireGuard Can Do More Than You Think

WireGuard isn’t “just a VPN.” It’s a minimal, kernel-level network interface that makes distant machines feel like they’re on the same LAN. Every device is a peer—roles emerge only from how you route traffic. Once that mental model clicks, the same simple config pattern can be reused everywhere.

The real power comes from composition. With one tunnel, you can link home and cloud, hide your origin behind a reverse proxy, bridge Docker networks, or route your phone through home for LAN access and IPv6. Most of the “complexity” people hit isn’t WireGuard at all—it’s standard Linux networking (routes, NAT, firewall rules).

Start small: bring up wg0, confirm a handshake, ping the peer. Then add routing—split-tunnel for LANs only, or 0.0.0.0/0, ::/0 for full exit. When you see how it works, WireGuard stops being a tool and becomes a building block for any network design.

WireGuard Related Terms Explained

Peer
Any WireGuard participant. There’s no strict client/server — roles come from routing. “Client” and “server” are valid mental models, but the software is identical.

Split-tunneling
Sending only specific traffic ranges through the tunnel, leaving the rest on the normal path. Controlled with the AllowedIPs field. On a “server,” AllowedIPs defines what client IPs are accepted (an allow list). On a “client,” it controls which destinations are routed through the tunnel.

NAT
Network Address Translation; rewrites packet sources so traffic can exit a gateway peer. You can think of it as an automatic gatekeeper. Without a firewall, NAT isn’t strictly needed. But with a firewall (where all gates are closed by default), NAT ensures outside responses can reach you — as long as you made the first connection. This behavior is also called hole punching***.