Jan-Lukas Else

Thoughts of an IT expert

First impressions: Tailscale

Published on in 💭 Thoughts
Short link: https://b.jlel.se/s/4b8
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Have you already heard of Tailscale? I read about it today in a blog article by Stanislas Lange and tried it out. And what can I say, it’s impressive!

Tailscale is an easy-to-setup VPN that hides the complexity of Wireguard and enables simple mesh networking. Even with devices behind NATs or without IPv6.

Thus, it is possible to connect several computers, servers or NAS devices to a network and access them mutually from anywhere. It is also possible to use devices in the network as exit nodes or to share subnets.

So, I can access my home network from anywhere with my smartphone, view files on my Synology Disk Station, or simply encrypt my connection from an unsecure network. All without the need to set port forwarding in my router at home.

But in addition, there are also other features: Magic DNS to not have to copy IP addresses, but simply use the device name as the address. Or TailDrop for the simple exchange of files between devices. (Now I don’t need to use Telegram for this anymore.)

And the best part: Whenever possible, a direct peer-to-peer connection is established, which means that traffic does not have to go through Tailscale’s servers.

A really cool service, I think, that makes some things much easier.

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Jan-Lukas Else
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