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Iroh 1.0

iroh.computer

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Re: Iroh 1.0

#401

Post by mkl »

munksbeer wrote: post #395
mkl wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please consider putting the first paragraph of [1], "iroh is a modular networking stack written in Rust. It provides the building blocks to create applications that can communicate using fast, cheap, and reliable connections.", at the top of the blog post and the main website. The middle two lines of [2] are good as a follow-up. The current stuff about dialling is pretty incomprehensible, as shown by the many confuse…

> "iroh is a modular networking stack written in Rust. You can omit the "written in Rust" part, but then you'd lose street cred.

It's not for street cred, it's what makes it usable everywhere: Rust, JavaScript (server or browser), Python, Kotlin, Swift, C. Written in JavaScript or Python means limited use, Kotlin or Swift means it could be tricky outside their main platforms, C means worrying about potential vulnerabilities and core dumps. I.e. "written in Rust" is definitely relevant here.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#402

Post by rklaehn »

ghosty141 wrote: post #400

What I don't get is, this makes it sound like applications can have peer to peer connections "on their own" but where does this actually work. If I have control over the whole device I might as well use a vpn, if I don't how do I ensure the firewall, network, etc. are all set up to allow the traffic necessary?

That’s the beauty of it. The app end user doesn’t have to do anything.

The iroh endpoint will determine its location in the world by probing the configured relays using QAD (similar to STUN). It will then choose a home relay and establish a https connection to it.

When another iroh endpoint wants to talk they first briefly talk via that relay, then hole punch and establish a direct connection.

All of this happens in the background without the user even noticing. It’s also very lightweight - runs on an embedded computer with 2 megabytes of RAM.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#403

Post by falsemyrmidon »

colinmarc wrote: post #357
meowkit wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this kindly, but this is so “engineer brained” Maybe the game has changed with LLMs, but its been a running joke that engineers will build a startup/product/library/thing only to then realize they can’t get any users and that marketing and sales are hard. Attention and mind share are more valuable than ever. If you can’t answer “Why should I care about X?” then you are fighting an uphill battle.

> Maybe the game has changed with LLMs, but its been a running joke that engineers will build a startup/product/library/thing only to then realize they can’t get any users and that marketing and sales are hard. I agree with your premise, but you're still viewing this technology through the lens of "a successful product" versus "a successful piece of technology". Plenty of open source projects stay open source and are…

It's still about getting users even if you're not charging money for it. If you want to make an open source thing and don't care about getting users then that's great for you I guess? And there's a good chance it'll stay that way unless you put at least some effort into getting them (eg even putting effort into a readme counts).

Re: Iroh 1.0

#404

Post by angry_octet »

apitman wrote: post #255

If you're new to Iroh, my mental model is roughly "Tailscale at the application layer instead of the network layer". If your question is, "why not just use Tailscale?", look at it from an app developer's perspective. If you want to release an app and have instances of your app be able to easily connect to each other, you could theoretically embeded Tailscale functionality into your app, but then the users of your app…

How do I add firewalls and proxies and logging to iroh connections? How do I revoke and re-issue iroh keys? Can I host iroh relays/gateways on my intranet?

Until these questions are answered iroh will remain blocked.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#405

Post by 40four »

Thaxll wrote: post #46

I don't understand the problem its trying to solve in the first place, IP works just fine, such as DNS. There is already IPv6 and quic, you need vendor and major software to have any traction in that field.

I’ve recently been building some hobby projects that focus on local first, decentralized architecture and that’s how I discovered Iroh. In my apps, I want the user data to be stored local only, no server, and have p2p sync ability. So for something like that, Iroh appears to be the state of the art.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#406

Post by rapnie »

samrus wrote: post #329
apitman wrote: post #255

If you're new to Iroh, my mental model is roughly "Tailscale at the application layer instead of the network layer". If your question is, "why not just use Tailscale?", look at it from an app developer's perspective. If you want to release an app and have instances of your app be able to easily connect to each other, you could theoretically embeded Tailscale functionality into your app, but then the users of your app…

Its amazing to me how people can make a great a product. And then completely bury the lead because they are so deep into the guts of the system You explained the value proposition so well. The website just didnt get to the "why?" At all

> You explained the value proposition so well.

No, it didn't. It shifted the burden of learning the value proposition to first knowing what Tailscale is exactly. And a response of "Duh, that's obvious", perhaps indicates being too deep in the guts of tailscale systems.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#407

Post by icedchai »

apitman wrote: post #317
icedchai wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running my own AS for years. You can get an ASN and IPv6 from a RIPE LIR for $200/year or less. Then you need a couple of VPSes that are BGP capable. You can get those for $20 month. Then you can tunnel traffic back to your location with a Wireguard tunnel or whatever you prefer. It's relatively cheap! I also have a legacy IPv4 block I'm routing, which doesn't cost me anything.

Is there no annual fee on all IPv4 blocks, or just legacy ones, which I'm assuming means blocks that haven't changed hands in a very long time?

I registered this one back in the early 90's, predating the existence of ARIN. No fees only on legacy ones, assuming one has not signed a registration agreement. I assume, at some point, I will be forced into signing an agreement, but it's worked well so far.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#408

Post by 40four »

I’ve recently become somewhat obsessed with a couple of hobby projects that focus on local first, decentralized architecture that sync data between users p2p & that’s how I stumbled across Iroh. It really seems like a great project, and as far as I can tell, if you want to do anything with p2p in 2026 you’re going to hard pressed than to find a better option than Iroh. Really exciting to see a 1.0 release! Congrats to the team!

Re: Iroh 1.0

#409

Post by Keyb0ardWarri0r »

Congrats!

I think you should highlight more the IoT use case, It's a really great solution for devices that need to talk over multiple transports (Lora + IP) and to avoid the need for a VPN.

Re: Iroh 1.0

#410

Post by hasteg »

samrus wrote: post #329
apitman wrote: post #255

If you're new to Iroh, my mental model is roughly "Tailscale at the application layer instead of the network layer". If your question is, "why not just use Tailscale?", look at it from an app developer's perspective. If you want to release an app and have instances of your app be able to easily connect to each other, you could theoretically embeded Tailscale functionality into your app, but then the users of your app…

Its amazing to me how people can make a great a product. And then completely bury the lead because they are so deep into the guts of the system You explained the value proposition so well. The website just didnt get to the "why?" At all

Agreed, I went through the blog post and a few other pages trying to figure out what the benefit of Iroh is since I have never heard of it... was struggling lol.
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