ipfs-lite VS tailscale

The README.md seems to explain quite well:

IPFS Lite v. 2.5.1: IPFS Lite node with modern UI to support standard use cases of IPFS

Basically, the whole point of this exercise was to avoid needing to rewrite an IPFS implementation for Android. Last night, I found an Android IPFS implementation that someone else wrote. (Believe you me, I've been looking for days! I finally backtraced a project from the Play Store to find the damn thing. My searches for things like "Android IPFS Client", etc never turned up this gem. Everything else is built atop of the assumption that you'll be running the go-lang ipfs node)

The other day I noticed the similarities between Tailscale and MUBI — not the companies, of course, but their logos! It also reminded me of a position control I once created. Subconsciously, this must have triggered something, because I woke up today wanting to code a “Scroll Grid.”

See https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/11717#issuecom...

> Because, for whatever reason I’ve yet to grasp, homelab folks like to implement Tailscale as some sort of “secure virtual network” abstraction layer - think something similar to zScaler ZPA - on top of their local LAN.

This is Tailscale's intended behavior, not how homelab folks like to implement it: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/659#issuecomme...

They started that for a number of countries during 30.08-01.09 2023 [0][1]

[0] https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/9158

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Tailscale/comments/1672n6k/

> VPN as a service sounds wrong from security perspective, as you are giving away all the keys.

Tailscale’s Android and Linux clients are open-source[0] and based on WireGuard (which AFAIU is now part of the Linux kernel[1]). With other VPN software you may be owning the keys but you cannot verify what the program does.

Tailscale requires a coordination server to function. This component is not open-source, but there is an open-source reimplementation called Headscale[2] that you can host on your own server.

Additionally, there is "tailnet lock"[3]:

> Tailnet lock lets you verify that no node is added to your tailnet without being signed by trusted nodes in your tailnet. When tailnet lock is enabled, even if Tailscale infrastructure is malicious or hacked, attackers can’t send or receive traffic on your tailnet.

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> These internal services that are annohnced are just... Services you can run on the Internet with TLS.

I haven’t used Tailscale in a professional context, so I cannot comment on the usefulness there, but I am using it (with Headscale) in my homelab. It makes it very easy to access all the services spread onto multiple boxes from everywhere, let them all use the same AdGuard Home DNS server without having to configure them individually and tunnel all my traffic through my home internet connection using an exit node[4].

I normally use croc[5] for file transfers between boxes, but when I had to fetch some files from my Windows game streaming computer, it was easier to just use Taildrop because Tailscale was installed already.

[0] https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale

BTW, that code changed just recently:

https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/commit/1c972bc7cbebfc...

It's now a AF_PACKET/SOCK_DGRAM fd as it was originally meant to be.

I recommend checking out [Caddy](https://caddyserver.com/), which replaces both Nginx and Certbot in this setup.

[Tailscale](https://tailscale.com/) can remove the need to open port 22 to the world, but I wouldn't rely on it unless your VPS provider has a way to access the server console in case of configuration mistakes.

Anyways, I'm not always at home when I want to work on something and I wanted to find a way to access services remotely. Well tonight I realized I should be able to do this with Tailscale.