Live data from Hacker News

Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

github.com

51–60 of 114 posts

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#51
post #14

This is a a beautiful thread. All the concerns that come into play with a commercial business, a very human representative of that business, and someone outside expressing a need. A need that some would see is contradictory to the pure business goals. Doing business out in the open like Tailscale is doing is so refreshing. Having seen Brad Fitz communicate in other places, it is obvious he isn't doing the right thing…

I remember when we used to say things like that about Google, circa 2000.

Once the MBAs and accountants take over a company things like that can't happen anymore.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#52
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tailscale employee here: In general the OSS operating systems get OSS clients, whereas the closed-source ones don’t necessarily get the full OSS treatment.

Appreciate the reply, Tailscaler. That makes sense and seems like a legitimate line to draw. Being a little bit of a pain, I would point out that the Google Play store and Google's components for Android are not open source. If you're willing to make Tailscale available via Google Play, and open source the client, maybe iOS can as well? And while we're at it, macOS apps can be installed out of band of an app store, s…

(Personal opinion here) Keep in mind that we're still a relatively small (but growing) team, and I think that a big part of not open sourcing everything is a simple matter of having the capacity to properly engage with the community.

For now, we've optimized for doing that for operating systems where users most expect it.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#53
post #12

If you're looking for a tailscale alternative (ish), I built a plugin for HashiCorp Vault to manage Wireguard keys: https://github.com/candiddev/vault-plugin-secrets-wireguard It's a bit more involved than Tailscale with the benefit that it uses Vault's robust authentication options.

But completely missing the thing that makes Tailscale great, imho: ACLs.

This was focused more on secure key distribution. The plugin could be extended to include tags and firewall rules for the groups/peers similar to Tailscale's design and convert them to PostUps that modify nft or iptables.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#55
post #47

That's good news, but there's now a plethora of WireGuard-based Tailscale clones.

Interested in these! Any chance you could drop a list of clones?

The recent ones I've seen are these:

* NetBird (https://netbird.io/)

* Firezone (https://www.firezone.dev/)

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why they don't open source the iOS client like they do Android. There is precedent for open source iOS apps still available on the App Store, so that's not a limitation. I would gladly dedicate some time to adding this as a PR (as I'm sure a million others would, too).

> I wonder why they don't open source the iOS client like they do Android. Mostly because developing for iOS and macOS is terrible, especially when your app needs to have "entitlements". Tailscale uses a "Network Extension entitlement" which is linked to our corporate Apple account. Even onboarding new employees and getting them up to speed on xcode/macOS/iOS development is painful. It often requires a bunch of messi…

Definitely appreciate the reply, and I don't mean to trivialize network extension development on iOS. You may still be angry at the platform, and on the other side of that coin, I'm a fan of yours who just wants to use this same feature on iOS that Android got. But again, I appreciate being a small team and wanting to focus on dev experience. If there's any hope to prioritize custom endpoint config on iOS, that would be great, and I'd be quick to use it!

For what it's worth, my want is to use Tailscale (or similar) for a family setup, which ends up feeling like enterprise to me as a tech guy, but without the pricing of it. Things like SSO are big to me, but I can't justify paying enterprise pricing for it. If there was such a plan, I'd be your first customer.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why they don't open source the iOS client like they do Android. There is precedent for open source iOS apps still available on the App Store, so that's not a limitation. I would gladly dedicate some time to adding this as a PR (as I'm sure a million others would, too).

> I wonder why they don't open source the iOS client like they do Android. Mostly because developing for iOS and macOS is terrible, especially when your app needs to have "entitlements". Tailscale uses a "Network Extension entitlement" which is linked to our corporate Apple account. Even onboarding new employees and getting them up to speed on xcode/macOS/iOS development is painful. It often requires a bunch of messi…

Then, as a Tailscale customer for business, it'd still be great if you would prioritize the MDM stuff for my personal uses. Or just expose a field in the settings, even if it's behind some hidden menu.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this what what I eventually grew to dislike the most about working for a public company. At the end of the day the stock price was the only thing that mattered. It would have been easier to stomach if the shareholders had a long-term vision of a healthy successful company whose value accumulates over time by making good long-term business decisions. But, quarterly returns were the name of the game. The executive…

The problem with public companies is they effectively have no shareholders; none that can actually do anything to affect the company. Which leaves the company to be run by the managers for the managers. Bogle (the father of the index fund) talks about how the index fund and friends has warped the benefits of ownership to leave companies effectively "unowned".

How is that any different from a typical private company?

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#59
That’s pretty amazing. Thank you Tailscale!

I’ve been running my own Homebrewed WireGuard configuration mechanism for N=~10 machines using Ansible because I did not want to use a proprietary product. This gives me the confidence to eventually switch over to headscale.

Re: Add ability to choose a custom coordination server

#60
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when we used to say things like that about Google, circa 2000.

Google used to have that, probably lost it, and then they lost people like Brad Fitz.

Maybe Urs etc shouldn't have criticized Brad when he posted his well-intentioned "Do not buy Nest Protect smoke alarm".

https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/566072337020112896?lang=...

The product was a terrible piece of crap that never should have been released.

Post reply on HN