QEMU/KVM VM Loses Network Access When "Local Network Sharing" is Disabled in Mullvad VPN

Ask Fedora
, , , , ,
1

I’m running QEMU/KVM on Fedora Silverblue with Mullvad VPN, and I’m running into a network issue.

When “Local Network Sharing” is disabled in Mullvad, my VMs lose all network access. But as soon as I enable that setting, they regain connectivity.

I want my VMs to have network access without enabling local network sharing, while ensuring that all their traffic is routed through the VPN. The reason I want local network sharing disabled is to prevent other devices on the network from seeing my computer.

I previously used VirtualBox on Linux Mint, and this was never an issue. That said, I really prefer QEMU/KVM over VirtualBox—it’s so much better, and I’m really enjoying using it. I just want to figure out how to get my networking configured properly.

I’ve also tried setting up a bridge connection by going into the virtual machine settings, selecting network options, choosing bridge device, and setting the device name to virbr0, but that didn’t resolve the issue.

I’ll admit, I don’t have a lot of experience with networking or VM networking, so I’m not sure if what I’m trying to do is even possible on QEMU/KVM. If it isn’t, I’d really appreciate it if someone could explain why that’s the case. Any insights or guidance would be super helpful!

2

Apparently Mullvad VPN adds some firewall rules that break traffic forwarding.

Perhaps there’s a way to prevent the VPN messing with the firewall, but they don’t offer any free plan, so it’s problematic to test and investigate.

As a workaround, you can try importing the VPN profile to NetworkManager and avoid using their client app.

On the other hand, a shared host bridge can be configured like this:
How to make a Virtual Machine present itself to my home network as if it were another physical computer - #7 by vgaetera

1 Like