vortix

Vortix

Terminal UI for WireGuard and OpenVPN with multi-tunnel control, real-time telemetry, and leak guarding.

See multi-connection, leak detection, split-tunnel, and profile-management demos

  Multi-connection

  


  Leak detection

  






  Split tunnel

  


  Profile management

Why Vortix?

Vortix gives WireGuard and OpenVPN users one keyboard-driven view of their tunnels and the network around them. It is useful when plain wg-quick or openvpn provides too little visibility, while a full desktop VPN client is too heavy or tied to one provider.

• Connect multiple profiles and distinguish the default-route tunnel from split-route tunnels.
• See throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss, exit identity, DNS policy, and encryption state.
• Detect IPv4, IPv6, and DNS-policy exposure instead of assuming a successful handshake means traffic is protected.
• Control the same engine from the TUI, CLI, or versioned JSON output.
• Work locally, over SSH, and across macOS and Linux.

Vortix orchestrates the system wg, wg-quick, and openvpn implementations; it does not implement either VPN protocol itself.

Quick start

Install the protocol tools first:

# macOS
brew install wireguard-tools openvpn

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install wireguard-tools openvpn

# Fedora
sudo dnf install wireguard-tools openvpn

Then install Vortix using your preferred channel:

Import a profile and connect:

vortix import ./work.conf       # .conf, .ovpn, URL, or directory
sudo vortix                    # interactive dashboard

# Or stay in the CLI
sudo vortix up work
vortix status
sudo vortix down work

Tunnel and firewall changes require root. Read-only commands such as list, show, and status do not. If sudo vortix cannot find a Cargo-installed binary on Linux, link it once with sudo ln -s ~/.cargo/bin/vortix /usr/local/bin/vortix.

See the usage guide for command and keybinding references.

Highlights

Platform support

macOS is the primary development platform. Linux is tested continuously, but distributions vary in resolver, firewall, kernel, and privilege configuration. Reports from other distributions are valuable—include vortix report when possible.

Source builds require Rust 1.85 or newer. Linux kernel 5.6 or newer is recommended for native WireGuard.

Security model

Vortix runs privileged only because tunnel, route, DNS, and firewall mutation require it. The privileged path is intentionally narrow:

• Protocol execution stays in protocol-specific adapters around the installed wg, wg-quick, and openvpn binaries.
• Platform adapters own firewall, DNS, route, and kernel inspection behavior.
• Profile identity, process ownership, durable operations, and read-back checks fail closed when Vortix cannot prove the state it is managing.
• Sensitive profile and credential material is bounded, owner-checked, and kept out of normal logs and JSON output.
• Telemetry uses public IP/geolocation providers; Vortix has no hosted control plane or DNS-test service.

Kill-switch rules survive a Vortix restart within the same boot, but the OS may flush them during reboot. Re-arm vpn-only after each boot.

For the trust boundaries and threat analysis, read the privileged-helper threat model.

Command overview

…

Every command supports --json; watch commands emit NDJSON. Run vortix --help for authoritative options.

Common TUI keys:

Documentation

For users

For contributors and agents

Contributing

Contributions and real-world testing are welcome:

• Start with a good first issue.
• Run a scenario from the manual-testing backlog.
• Share Linux results in the Linux tester discussion.
• Use Discussions for questions and ideas.

Development starts with cargo build, cargo test, and the full CI parity suite before pushing. Nix users can run nix develop for the project shell.

Featured in

awesome-rust · awesome-ratatui · awesome-tuis · Arch Linux extra · Terminal Trove · LinuxLinks · Orhun Parmaksız's spotlight · RustNation UK talk deck · JustTUI

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