Failover Configuration
Failover groups have several configurable parameters that control health detection, failover timing, and failback behavior.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”Traffic Timeout
Section titled “Traffic Timeout”- Default: 30 seconds
- What it does: How long a tunnel must be in the “sending but not receiving” state before it’s declared unhealthy and failover triggers.
- Tradeoff: Lower values detect failures faster but increase the risk of false positives during brief network glitches. Higher values are more conservative but mean longer outages before failover.
- Recommendation: The default of 30 seconds works well for most scenarios. Combined with the 10-second health check interval, unhealthy connections are typically detected within ~40 seconds.
Health Check Interval
Section titled “Health Check Interval”- Default: 10 seconds
- What it does: How often the health monitor polls the WireGuard backend for traffic statistics.
- Tradeoff: More frequent checks detect issues faster but use slightly more CPU. Less frequent checks save resources but increase detection time.
- Recommendation: 10 seconds is a good balance. Going below 5 seconds provides diminishing returns.
Auto Failback
Section titled “Auto Failback”- Default: Enabled
- What it does: When enabled, WGnext periodically probes the primary tunnel and switches back to it when it recovers.
- When to disable: If your fallback tunnel is equivalent in quality to the primary and you don’t want the brief disruption of failback probes.
Failback Probe Interval
Section titled “Failback Probe Interval”- Default: 300 seconds (5 minutes)
- What it does: How often to probe the primary tunnel when currently running on a fallback.
- Tradeoff: More frequent probes mean faster recovery to the primary but cause more brief disruptions (~15 seconds each). Less frequent probes reduce disruptions but delay recovery.
- Recommendation: 5 minutes is reasonable for most use cases. If your primary connection is critical and outages are typically short, consider reducing to 120 seconds.
Editing settings
Section titled “Editing settings”When creating a group
Section titled “When creating a group”Settings are configured in the Failover Settings section of the failover group editor. The editor shows numeric pickers for timeouts and intervals, and a toggle for auto failback.
After creation
Section titled “After creation”To change settings on an existing group:
- Tap the failover group in the tunnel list
- Tap Edit
- Scroll to the Failover Settings section
- Modify values and tap Save
Changes take effect immediately if the group is active — the extension receives the updated settings via IPC.
Default values summary
Section titled “Default values summary”| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic Timeout | 30s | 10-120s |
| Health Check Interval | 10s | 5-60s |
| Auto Failback | Enabled | On/Off |
| Failback Probe Interval | 300s | 60-900s |
Built-in protections
Section titled “Built-in protections”These values are not user-configurable and are designed to prevent pathological behavior:
| Protection | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum hold time | 60 seconds between any two switches |
| Max cycles before cooldown | 3 full cycles through all configs |
| Cooldown duration | 5 minutes of inactivity after max cycles |