One fun use case: a coworker just whipped up this Minecraft mod using tailcat as its transport: https://github.com/tailscale/tailcat-for-minecraft (just a cute demo, not intended for release or ongoing maintenance)
Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
51–60 of 141 posts
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#52This is smart. It's Magic Wormhole but for generalized connectivity, not just file transfer.
Yes, though MW has the important distinction that it uses short human-readable session identifiers. This means MW supports file transfer where the out-of-band channel is just a phone call. This is also why it needs PAKE as opposed to the simpler cryptography used in tailcat
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#53Looks dope, though I'm surprised, is Tailscale fine with their DERP servers being used by non-customers like this? (Yes, it's a Tailscale project, but doesn't require login.) I vaguely assumed there was an auth step before you could use one as a relay. They mention a rate limit, but still
But these are a separate fleet (https://tailcat.dev/derpmap.json) separate from our usual ones, and not using "tailscale.com" in DNS or SNI anywhere.
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#54Just yesterday I was complaining that I wanted to SSH back to my homenet while at the office, on my office (not home) tailnet. I wrote something based on Iroh to do this, but it's one shot (ie not particularly generalized). Might be able to throw it away or redesign it with some inspiration from this! Thanks.
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#55i like that it removes tailscale proprietary. if that is goal then why not go 100% open source to eliminate the ts derp control as well and get full sovereignty? like netbird, openziti, zerotier, etc.
Or just use wireguard directly. I get it that it's a pain in the ass to configure it, but there are plenty of open source config generators
NAT traversal is a different topic, WG won't help in that, and that can actually be a pain. I guess we should be using IPv6 already, and this tool would be largely redundant already. (not completely, encrypted access to isolated networks is a valid use case)
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#56This is smart. It's Magic Wormhole but for generalized connectivity, not just file transfer.
Yes, though MW has the important distinction that it uses short human-readable session identifiers. This means MW supports file transfer where the out-of-band channel is just a phone call. This is also why it needs PAKE as opposed to the simpler cryptography used in tailcat
May be my idea of simpler cryptography is incorrect, but PAKEs like CPace do seem simpler than public key primitives in Noise.
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
but without nat traversal...
Is NAT traversal actually that big of a feature? The category of people that would use a tool like this already knows many ways to do it without NAT getting in the way.
It's really pretty cool.
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
but without nat traversal...
Is NAT traversal actually that big of a feature? The category of people that would use a tool like this already knows many ways to do it without NAT getting in the way.
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, though MW has the important distinction that it uses short human-readable session identifiers. This means MW supports file transfer where the out-of-band channel is just a phone call. This is also why it needs PAKE as opposed to the simpler cryptography used in tailcat
> This is also why it needs PAKE as opposed to the simpler cryptography used in tailcat May be my idea of simpler cryptography is incorrect, but PAKEs like CPace do seem simpler than public key primitives in Noise .
Re: Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just use wireguard directly. I get it that it's a pain in the ass to configure it, but there are plenty of open source config generators
> it's a pain in the ass to configure it Public/private key pairs are hard? It's no more terrible than other projects that require configs.