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Tunnelbird

Documentation

Everything Tunnelbird does, in plain words.

Getting started

  1. Get the file of your tunnel: your VPN provider's website, your router, or your own server (wg-easy, PiVPN…) gives a .conf (WireGuard®) or .ovpn (OpenVPN) file.
  2. In Tunnelbird, click + or drop the file on the window. A preview shows what was read: check it, give the tunnel a name, and import.
  3. Turn the switch on. Your system may ask for your password once, to allow network changes.

OpenVPN profiles

Profiles with their certificates inside work as they are. If the profile refers to separate files (ca.crt, client.key…), select them together with the .ovpn file. When the server asks for a user name and password, type the user name in the preview; leave the password empty to be asked at the first connection, and your desktop keyring keeps it.

Trusted networks

In Preferences › Automatic Connection, choose a tunnel and the Wi-Fi networks you trust, picked from the ones your computer already knows. On any other network, Tunnelbird connects the tunnel by itself; it never disconnects anything on its own. The strict verification also checks the router's hardware address, so a hotspot named like your home network is not trusted.

Sharing a tunnel

The share button of a tunnel saves it as a file, or shows a WireGuard® tunnel as a QR code for your phone's VPN app. Both contain the tunnel's private key: keep them to yourself.

Top bar icon

Tunnelbird keeps running in the top bar when its window is closed (Preferences › Run in Background). On GNOME, the icon needs the AppIndicator extension, enabled by default on Ubuntu; KDE shows it natively.

Updates

To update, run the install command again. Tunnelbird tells you when a new version is installed and offers to restart, then shows what's new.

Troubleshooting