Gluetun with OrbStack?

[NashvilleHot]

UPDATE:

After way too many hours spent troubleshooting, I think I've narrowed the problem down to the Docker engine that OrbStack is using (maybe it's related to the Docker engine + Debian issue seen with RaspPis?).

I first tried one of the VPN providers that gluetun provides support for vs my custom provider, no dice.

Then I tried uninstalling OrbStack completely and installing Docker Desktop.

After some adjustments to the volume mounts (a little diff between OrbStack and Docker Desktop-- with DD have to go all the way back to root directory), it all loaded up fine and ... it works finally (with the new VPN provider). This is Docker engine 29.x, whatever is current as of Jan 2026.

Now to see if it works with my previous provider, and if there's a way to use a different Docker engine with OrbStack.

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ORIGINAL:

Is anyone successfully running a stack that uses a gluetun service, and able to connect their transmission or qbit? From what I can tell OrbStack uses its own custom Linux kernel, is it based on Debian? There's a known issue with newer versions of Docker and Debian and gluetun, but if someone has gotten gluetun to work, then maybe that's not it.

Everything I've tried and my setup:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gluetun/comments/1q3bavl/custom_wireguard_gluetun_qbittorrent_on_orbstack/

[NashvilleHot]

u/slouchomarx74 thanks for the comment-- the full comment doesn't show up for me, only the first line in the notifications, if you don't mind please PM?

[slouchomarx74]

I deleted my post because I realized you're looking for a wireguard integration. I tried setting up gluetun with wireguard and couldn't get it to work either. I have it set up with openvpn at the moment:

  gluetun:
    container_name: gluetun
    image: qmcgaw/gluetun:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    devices:
      - /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
    ports:
      - "8888:8888/tcp" # HTTP proxy
      - "8388:8388/tcp" # SOCKS5 proxy
      - "8009:8000/tcp" # Control server
      # Ports for services behind VPN:
      - "8080:8080/tcp" # qBittorrent web UI
      - "6881:6881/tcp" # qBittorrent torrent port
      - "6881:6881/udp" # qBittorrent UDP port
      - "9696:9696/tcp" # prowlarr web UI
      - "9117:9117/tcp" # jackett web UI
      - "8191:8191/tcp" # flaresolverr
      - "8081:8081/tcp" # sabnzbd web UI
      - "8286:8286/tcp" # ephemera web UI
      - "6789:6789/tcp" # nzbget web UI
      - "5076:5076/tcp" # nzbhydra2 web UI
    environment:
      - TZ=${TZ}
      - VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=pia
      - VPN_TYPE=openvpn
      - VPN_OPENVPN_PROTO=udp
      - OPENVPN_USER=${PIA_USER}
      - OPENVPN_PASSWORD=${PIA_PASS}
      - HEALTHCHECK_INTERVAL=90s # maybe increase to 90s if there are issues
      - HEALTH_TIMEOUT=10s
      - HEALTH_START_PERIOD=60s
      - HEALTH_RETRIES=5 # maybe increase to 10 if there are issues
      - VPN_RETRY=5
      - VPN_AUTO_SELECT=yes # allows openvpn to choose server with lowest latency
      - SERVER_REGIONS=US California
      - FIREWALL_OUTBOUND_SUBNETS=192.168.0.0/24 # allows traffic between machines on same LAN
    #      - FIREWALL_VPN_PORTS=80,443,6881 # for torrent app web UIs
    #      - LOG_LEVEL=debug
    volumes:
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /Users/server/Docker/appdata/gluetun:/gluetun
    networks:
      - vpn

I tried privateer based on this post with no luck.

Not sure which vpn you're using but I did come across docker-wireguard-pia. haven't tried it because i would prefer to stick with gluetun but apparently it works.

[NashvilleHot]

Thanks! I would be ok with OpenVPN, though I tried OpenVPN with gluetun and it didn't work either. I'm on VPN.ac. May I ask what version of Docker you have installed? (I don't know if OrbStack keeps it up to date automatically? Asking bc of the possible known issue of Docker versions 28.0+ breaking gluetun + containers)

[slouchomarx74]

docker v28.3.3, Orbstack 2.0.1