Is Tailscale a VPN? What it hides and doesn't
Tailscale is a WireGuard VPN between your own devices. It does not hide your IP from websites or your ISP until you add an exit node. What each setup hides.
Filtering by topic #vpn · clear
Tailscale is a WireGuard VPN between your own devices. It does not hide your IP from websites or your ISP until you add an exit node. What each setup hides.
The vendor Compose example leaves your app on a public host port. Use a Tailscale sidecar so the container has no published port, only a tailnet name.
Tailnet lock stops a compromised Tailscale coordination server from adding a node to your tailnet. It also gives you ten secrets you must not lose.
Your VPN is blocked because its handshake is recognisable. What Outline, obfs4 and WebTunnel change about the bytes, and what they cannot hide.
Run the Outline VPN server, not the wiki app, on your own VPS. Install, access keys, the management API port, and what Shadowsocks does not hide.
Tailscale bills per user, not per device. Work out what a household and a five person team really pay, which limit you hit first, and when Headscale wins.
Gluetun installs a real firewall kill switch inside its own network namespace. What your containers see when the tunnel dies, and how to prove it holds.
Slow WireGuard is usually an MTU problem. Find your path MTU by bisection, clamp TCP MSS, check steal time, and measure the path before blaming the tunnel.
Your WireGuard handshake works but no host on the home LAN answers. Four settings decide whether a packet reaches 192.168.20.10 and finds its way back.
AllowedIPs is the routing table and the access list at once. Learn cryptokey routing, the Noise handshake and rotation, and every wg0.conf reads clearly.
Tailscale never holds the keys that encrypt your traffic. The real question is what a compromised coordination server or a stolen identity account can do.
Tailscale is free for up to six users with unlimited user devices. Here is what a seat, a device and a tagged resource cost, and when Headscale wins.
Tailscale explained: WireGuard tunnels between your servers, a coordination server for keys and ACLs, NAT traversal, DERP relays, and the threat model.
Tailscale serve puts HTTPS on a tailnet-only URL. Funnel opens that same port to the public internet. Which to use, and the policy gate that blocks funnel.
Downloads work but nothing ever connects in. Set up gluetun port forwarding, push the new port to your torrent client on every reconnect, and verify it.
Tor and a VPN answer different questions. See exactly who learns what at every hop, and why a VPS rented in your name is not an anonymity tool.
Turn your VPS into a Tailscale exit node: install, advertise, enable IP forwarding, approve the route in the admin console, then fix DNS and IPv6.
A container behind Gluetun has no interfaces of its own. Publish its ports on Gluetun, and open only the subnets it must reach outside the tunnel.
Put a container behind a Gluetun sidecar and its ports vanish. Here is why the shared network namespace does that, and the compose file that works.
Run your own Tailscale control server on a VPS. Install headscale from the official .deb, set server_url before you start it, then join your first node.
A VPS is a computer you rent. A VPN is an encrypted tunnel for your traffic. What each one does, what each costs, and how one can host the other.
Run WireGuard behind the wg-easy web UI with Docker Compose: the ports, NET_ADMIN, the sysctls that matter, and QR code onboarding for phones.
Your WireGuard tunnel is up but names do not resolve, or the queries leak to the local router. Find which of the three DNS failures you have, and fix it.
Tailscale is WireGuard plus a control plane. What that coordination server buys you, what it costs you, and which of the three belongs on your VPS.
WireGuard wins for almost every self hoster on speed, config size and audit surface. Here is the evidence, and the four cases where OpenVPN still wins.
Set up WireGuard on your own Linux VPS: key generation, wg0.conf, IP forwarding, NAT, AllowedIPs semantics, DNS, and the handshake failures that bite.