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Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

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Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#41

Post by victorhooi »

mediocregopher wrote: post #2

Another similar project to Tailscale, for those in the market: https://github.com/slackhq/nebula Crazy simple, fully open source, trivial to self-host. Maybe not as featureful as Tailscale, but imo that can be a feature unto itself.

One thing I can't figure out with Nebula is - how do you join multiple different networks?

For example, I have a personal laptop - I want to join two different networks, that are for two different purposes, and be able to talk to hosts in each? (But hosts in each should not be able to talk to hosts in the other)

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#42

Post by robertlagrant »

cheesetable wrote: post #18

Not sure what I think about this. I don't use Tailscale because I don't trust their key distribution, and this open source project would solve that, but it might undermine Tailscale's sustainability. This would be a shame because Tailscale is working well with the open source community: open source clients, working well with distros, working well with Linux DNS stack, supporting a more P2P secure Internet, and docume…

I agree - there's always a danger with companies that try and have a lot of their product as OS that someone will come along with an OS product that plugs the gap in the only place they're trying to make a profit!

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#43

Post by mikevm »

JeremyNT wrote: post #14
mediocregopher wrote: post #2

Another similar project to Tailscale, for those in the market: https://github.com/slackhq/nebula Crazy simple, fully open source, trivial to self-host. Maybe not as featureful as Tailscale, but imo that can be a feature unto itself.

I've been using Nebula for personal use and it's really great. I have a free Oracle Cloud vm as my "lighthouse." The advantage of Nebula is that it's dead simple. Generate a keypair, copy it over, copy the config file, and go. It can do mesh routing for the vpn and traverse nat magically. You can delegate dns to the lighthouse and name resolution just works too. That simplicity is awesome for personal use, and maybe…

How well does it handle public WiFi? Some hotspots may block any non-HTTP traffic, or traffic on nonstandard ports. IIRC ZeroTier will use relays when UDP traffic is blocked.

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#44

Post by nine_k »

cheesetable wrote: post #18

Not sure what I think about this. I don't use Tailscale because I don't trust their key distribution, and this open source project would solve that, but it might undermine Tailscale's sustainability. This would be a shame because Tailscale is working well with the open source community: open source clients, working well with distros, working well with Linux DNS stack, supporting a more P2P secure Internet, and docume…

You buy a Tailscale contract for the same reason you buy a Red Hat contract. If something goes wrong, and you need to fix it fast, their experts will work on that, not yourself.

Also, Tailscale offers OAuth through large corporate providers; I'm not sure Headscale is going to support that. (Actually, this is why I don't use Tailscale for my private network: I don't want to depend on an external OAuth provider.)

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#45

Post by juanfont »

cheesetable wrote: post #18

Not sure what I think about this. I don't use Tailscale because I don't trust their key distribution, and this open source project would solve that, but it might undermine Tailscale's sustainability. This would be a shame because Tailscale is working well with the open source community: open source clients, working well with distros, working well with Linux DNS stack, supporting a more P2P secure Internet, and docume…

Headscale dev here.

Companies looking into this will pay Tailscale.com service. You really need commercial support if you plan a large enterprise deployment. Tailscale even now offers a self-hosted version of their service - for those with concerns about using the public SaaS.

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#47

Post by jgilias »

Can someone shed some light on the full use-case of Tailscale/Zerotier/Nebula please? I may be not getting something fully.

The question is this. Say, I use one of the above to form a private mesh network for the nodes that an organization needs to have access to. So far so good. But on the machine side I would still want to have key (ideally certificate) based authentication, and some user management, such that access can be revoked. Is this an anti-pattern? Or do people use something like Go Teleport in combination with a zero trust mesh network?

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#49

Post by _abox »

mediocregopher wrote: post #2

Another similar project to Tailscale, for those in the market: https://github.com/slackhq/nebula Crazy simple, fully open source, trivial to self-host. Maybe not as featureful as Tailscale, but imo that can be a feature unto itself.

Tinc is also pretty good and predates both by about a decade :)

Ps if we're listing alternatives zerotier is also one

Re: Headscale: Open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server

#50

Post by GekkePrutser »

bibabaloo wrote: post #26
s_Hogg wrote: post #11

I read through the README and I'm still not quite sure - given how simple it is to set up wireguard, what's the value add here?

Centralised management and simple NAT/firewall traversal, basically.

The peer to peer traffic also helps increase throughput and reduce latency. With traditional VPN, peers will never connect directly
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