Openwrt not connecting as wireguard client

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi,
I'm trying to set up a travel router which connects to my home via Wireguard. I installed travelmate and set the router up to connect to my phone hotspot and to provide an AP. Right now, I'm connected to the AP from my laptop and internet access works fine. However, I can't get the router to connect to my home via the hotspot. Wireguard on my phone works without any issues, so the server should not be the issue.
I tried to set it up two ways. First, I just created a wireguard vpn interface from luci and clicked load configuration. It created the interface but it stayed offline. Second, I tried it via ssh following this tutorial. As far as I can tell, it did the exact same thing.

in the logs I get the following every few seconds:

Mon Mar 23 23:11:21 2026 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'home' is now down
Mon Mar 23 23:11:21 2026 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'home' is setting up now
Mon Mar 23 23:11:21 2026 daemon.notice netifd: home (17493): Unable to retrieve current interface configuration: No such device
Mon Mar 23 23:11:21 2026 daemon.notice netifd: home (17493): Could not sync WireGuard configuration
Mon Mar 23 23:11:22 2026 daemon.warn odhcpd[1529]: No default route present, setting ra_lifetime to 0!

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# cat /etc/config/network

config interface 'loopback'
        option device 'lo'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
        option netmask '255.0.0.0'

config globals 'globals'
        option ula_prefix 'fd42:d5d4:18e5::/48'
        option dhcp_default_duid '0004bdccdb332a0347b5ba045cd86e42c8f4'
        option packet_steering '1'

config device
        option name 'br-lan'
        option type 'bridge'
        list ports 'eth0.1'

config interface 'lan'
        option device 'br-lan'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
        option netmask '255.255.255.0'
        option multipath 'off'

config interface 'wan'
        option device 'eth0.2'
        option proto 'dhcp'

config interface 'wan6'
        option device 'eth0.2'
        option proto 'dhcpv6'

config switch
        option name 'switch0'
        option reset '1'
        option enable_vlan '1'

config switch_vlan
        option device 'switch0'
        option vlan '1'
        option ports '0 6t'

config switch_vlan
        option device 'switch0'
        option vlan '2'
        option ports '1 6t'

config interface 'trm_wwan'
        option proto 'dhcp'
        option metric '100'
        option hostname '*'
        option multipath 'off'

config interface 'trm_wwan6'
        option device '@trm_wwan'
        option proto 'dhcpv6'

config interface 'home'
        option proto 'wireguard'
        option private_key 'redacted'
        option multipath 'off'
        option delegate '0'
        list addresses '10.0.0.5/32'
        list dns '192.168.0.53'

config wireguard_home
        option description 'Imported peer configuration'
        option public_key 'redacted'
        list allowed_ips '0.0.0.0/0'
        option persistent_keepalive '21'
        option endpoint_host 'redacted'
        option endpoint_port '51820'

What could be the issue here?
2

The interface name "home" appears to violate some system restriction.
Change it to something else and it should start working.

3

Thanks, that worked! Good to know. However, for some reason, my traffic is not routed through the vpn but directly via the hotspot. Is there anything else I would need to set up?

4

Enable Route Allowed IPs

5

You need an additional option to create a route directing the traffic into the tunnel.

1 Like
6

Thanks a lot!

7

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