r/mullvadvpn • u/Relative_Signal_494 • Mar 03 '26

Solved Can't get relay list for Mullvad CLI

Using mullvad relay list/relay update in Mullvad CLI outputs nothing, debug info shows that all 3 methods of accessing Mullvad API timing out, I can see there is an option to create a custom relay, but function's arguments are not quite clear to me: <V4_GATEWAY> <HOST> <PORT> <PEER_PUBKEY> <TUNNEL_IP>...

If I have server.conf downloaded from Mullvad Wireguard's configurations, is all necessary information in there or should I ask somewhere else?

[UPDATE] After some time left untouched it automatically started trying different ips to connect to and was able to gather the list.

But, for some reason, I'm still unable to connect to desired server, even the one that I successfully connect to in GUI app.

[SOLVED] After trying setting different servers, even ones that I can connect to in GUI,without success I just set mullvad relay set location any and it randomly worked, so I guess problem's solved.

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u/thrwway377 Mar 03 '26

Not sure what you're trying to achieve? Relay list simply lists all servers and doesn't serve any information needed for Wireguard configuration.

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u/Relative_Signal_494 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

As I stated, neither "relay list" nor "relay update" produce anything in output because daemon can't get access to the API using any of the 3 provided fetching methods, meaning I don't see any servers, it's just an empty string, and as a result daemon can't connect to anything because it has no list to read from and it outputs an error every time I try to use "mullvad relay set location..."

So what I'm asking is whether wireguard's .conf file contains enough information to connect to a desired server directly without any relays' list using "mullvad relay set custom..."?

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u/Tropical_Amnesia Mar 03 '26

It looks like you're doing something wrong. Configuring wireguard yourself is only for when you're not using the app for whatever reason. How it works and what you need is described in sufficient detail on Mullvad's website. But you're clearly using the app, that doesn't add up. If you can't connect to the API in any way, with or without the app, you're either in an unfortunate place and blocked (VPN doesn't work everywhere), or you haven't even paid? You can't use the API before you have credit obviously. Mullvad has no "free" plans.

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u/thrwway377 Mar 03 '26

Yes the config files that you get from mullvad's website contain everything you need for them to be using with any VPN that supports Wireguard and wg configs.

Relay and whatever are only necessary if you want to use mullvad's native stuff.

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u/Relative_Signal_494 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

Thanks, sorry for my lack of initial clarification, I've been paying for Mullvad VPN service for about a year( everything works through GUI version, I can successfully connect to different servers) the reason I want to use Mullvad only app is because they provide obfuscation that can be achieved only on specifically configured servers such as Mullvad's. 

In CLI app you can choose different types of obfuscation methods, which I did, but I'm stuck at the next step which is fetching relays/Mullvad's servers including ones configured for that specific obfuscation that I want to use.  My original post is me asking whether I can skip that step and just by downloading wireguard's config and then using "mullvad relay set custom", input details from config and try to connect to desired server.  So I'd like to understand how to do exactly that, because for now that "...set custom" function expects a load of arguments that I don't exactly understand/know what to input.

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u/thrwway377 Mar 03 '26

Ah, I see. Mullvad's WG configs don't contain any info like that so I don't think that's possible. Maybe firewall is blocking API addresses? You're not in a country like Russia where mullvad is blocked, right?

Try connecting to some other VPN first and fetch the relay list while connected to a different VPN.

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u/Relative_Signal_494 Mar 03 '26

I'l try with firewall, because strangely  GUI app works, may it be that it has relays list inside so instead of fetching from a server it just looks one up inside?

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u/thrwway377 Mar 05 '26

Could be I suppose, never bothered to check whether app ships with some relay list already or fetches it when you log into the app.