Vortix

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

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

# Arch / CachyOS / Manjaro
sudo pacman -S wireguard-tools openvpn

# Fedora
sudo dnf install wireguard-tools openvpn

Only the .deb and .rpm packages pull these in; with any other channel, install them first. Vortix drives wg-quick and openvpn as subprocesses, so without them a profile imports but cannot connect. vortix up names the missing package and the install command for your distro.

Then install Vortix using your preferred channel:

| Channel | Install | |---|---| | Homebrew (macOS, Linux) | brew install vortix (also installs wireguard-tools and openvpn) | | Debian / Ubuntu | Download the .deb from Releases, then sudo apt install ./vortix_*_amd64.deb (or arm64) | | Fedora / RHEL | Download the .rpm from Releases, then sudo dnf install ./vortix-*.x86_64.rpm (or aarch64) | | Arch Linux | sudo pacman -S vortix | | Cargo | cargo binstall vortix (prebuilt binary) or cargo install vortix (builds from source, needs about 4 GB of memory) | | npm | npm install -g @harry-kp/vortix | | Nix | nix profile install github:Harry-kp/vortix | | Shell installer | curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/Harry-kp/vortix/releases/latest/download/vortix-installer.sh \| sh | | Static Linux binary | Download the musl archive from Releases |

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

Changing tunnels, routes, DNS or the firewall needs root; list, show and status do not. If sudo vortix is not found after a Cargo install or the shell installer, link it once: sudo ln -s ~/.cargo/bin/vortix /usr/local/bin/vortix.

Every command, key and panel is in the usage guide.

Highlights

| Area | What Vortix provides | |---|---| | Protocols | WireGuard .conf and OpenVPN .ovpn / .conf profiles, up to 1024 routes each | | Multi-tunnel | Full and split tunnels side by side, one default-route owner, and a Switch or Cancel choice on conflicts | | Telemetry | Throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss, public IP, ISP, and location | | Security Guard | IPv4/IPv6 exposure, DNS, encryption and kill-switch state, with one verdict | | Kill switch | off, block-on-drop, and vpn-only, using PF on macOS or nftables on Linux | | Automation | A versioned JSON envelope, NDJSON watch streams, stable exit codes, shell completions and hooks | | Diagnostics | Event logs, OpenVPN daemon logs, session journals, per-process socket audit, and vortix report | | Appearance | Seven built-in themes, including one that follows your terminal's colors |

Platform support

| | macOS | Linux | |---|---|---| | VPN tools | Homebrew wireguard-tools, openvpn | Distribution wireguard-tools, openvpn | | Kill switch | PF (pfctl) | nftables (nft) | | DNS | System Configuration | systemd-resolved or resolvconf | | CI | macOS | Ubuntu and Fedora |

macOS is the primary development platform; Linux is tested on every change and live before each release. Reports from other distributions help: include vortix report.

Source builds need Rust 1.85 or newer. Linux 5.6 or newer is recommended for in-kernel WireGuard.

Vortix runs as root only to change tunnels, routes, DNS and the firewall, never runs commands from a profile, and has no server of its own. What it does with privilege and data is in SECURITY.md.

Documentation

| For users | | |---|---| | Usage | Commands, keys, panels, multiple tunnels, the kill switch, JSON | | Configuration | Files, config.toml, settings.toml, hooks, DNS | | Troubleshooting | What an error means and what to do | | Upgrading | Steps when upgrading from an older version |

| For contributors | | |---|---| | Contributing | How to build, test and send a change | | CLAUDE.md | The project's rules and architecture, for people and coding agents | | Project board | Planned and active work |

Contributing

Contributions and real-world testing are welcome:

• Start with a good first issue.
• Run a scenario from the release test plan.
• Share Linux results in the Linux tester discussion.
• Use Discussions for questions and ideas.

See CONTRIBUTING.md to get started; Nix users can run nix develop.

Featured in

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

Also by the author

mercury — keyboard-first API client for the terminal. 5 MB, 50 ms startup. · afk — menu bar break reminder, 2.8 MB.

Star history

WireGuard® is a registered trademark of Jason A. Donenfeld. OpenVPN® is a registered trademark of OpenVPN Inc. Vortix is not affiliated with either.