PrivateVPN

March 1, 2026 · View on GitHub

TLDR

💁 To use with Wireguard, see the custom provider Wireguard section.

For OpenVPN:

docker run -it --rm --cap-add=NET_ADMIN --device /dev/net/tun \
-e VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=privatevpn \
-e OPENVPN_USER=abc -e OPENVPN_PASSWORD=abc \
-e SERVER_COUNTRIES=Netherlands qmcgaw/gluetun

version: "3"
services:
  gluetun:
    image: qmcgaw/gluetun
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    devices:
      - /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
    environment:
      - VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=privatevpn
      - OPENVPN_USER=abc
      - OPENVPN_PASSWORD=abc
      - SERVER_COUNTRIES=Netherlands

Required environment variables

VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=privatevpn
OPENVPN_USER: Your PrivateVPN account login, not the "Proxy login" found on its Control Panel
OPENVPN_PASSWORD: Your PrivateVPN account password

Optional environment variables

SERVER_COUNTRIES: Comma separated list of countries
SERVER_CITIES: Comma separated list of cities
SERVER_HOSTNAMES: Comma separated list of server hostnames. Beware this is the narrowest filter, so if you set this to a single hostname and this hostname disappears from the Gluetun servers data due to an update, your container will no longer work until this filter is changed. I would suggest avoiding it unless you know this reliability risk.
OPENVPN_ENDPOINT_PORT: Custom OpenVPN server endpoint port to use
OPENVPN_PROTOCOL: udp or tcp, defaults to udp

VPN server port forwarding is only supported on OpenVPN. If you try using it with Wireguard, PrivateVPN API will return {"supported":false} message, resulting in a "port forwarding not supported for this VPN server" error.

Set VPN_PORT_FORWARDING=on and the port forwarded will be logged out as well as available via the http control server. See VPN server port forwarding setup page for more details.

Servers

To see a list of servers available, list the VPN servers with Gluetun.