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Table of Contents

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Survey of Options

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  • WireGuard aims to be as easy to configure and deploy as SSH. A VPN connection is made simply by exchanging very simple public keys – exactly like exchanging SSH keys – and all the rest is transparently handled by WireGuard. It is even capable of roaming between IP addresses, just like Mosh. There is no need to manage connections, be concerned about state, manage daemons, or worry about what's under the hood
  • WireGuard securely encapsulates IP packets over UDP. You add a WireGuard interface, configure it with your private key and your peers' public keys, and then you send packets across it. All issues of key distribution and pushed configurations are out of scope of WireGuard. In contrast, it more mimics the model of SSH and Mosh; both parties have each other's public keys, and then they're simply able to begin exchanging packets through the interface
  • WireGuard works by adding a network interface (or multiple), like eth0 or wlan0, called wg0 (or wg1, wg2, wg3, etc). This network interface can then be configured normally using ifconfig(8) or ip-address(8), with routes for it added and removed using route(8) or ip-route(8), and so on with all the ordinary networking utilities. The specific WireGuard aspects of the interface are configured using the wg(8) tool. This interface acts as a tunnel interface.
  • At the heart of WireGuard is a concept called Cryptokey Routing, which works by associating public keys with a list of tunnel IP addresses that are allowed inside the tunnel. Each network interface has a private key and a list of peers. Each peer has a public key. Public keys are short and simple, and are used by peers to authenticate each other. They can be passed around for use in configuration files by any out-of-band method, similar to how one might send their SSH public key to a friend for access to a shell server
  • The client configuration contains an initial endpoint of its single peer (the server), so that it knows where to send encrypted data before it has received encrypted data. The server configuration doesn't have any initial endpoints of its peers (the clients). This is because the server discovers the endpoint of its peers by examining from where correctly authenticated data originates. If the server itself changes its own endpoint, and sends data to the clients, the clients will discover the new server endpoint and update the configuration just the same. Both client and server send encrypted data to the most recent IP endpoint for which they authentically decrypted data. Thus, there is full IP roaming on both ends
  • WireGuard sends and receives encrypted packets using the network namespace in which the WireGuard interface was originally created. This means that you can create the WireGuard interface in your main network namespace, which has access to the Internet, and then move it into a network namespace belonging to a Docker container as that container's only interface. This ensures that the only possible way that container is able to access the network is through a secure encrypted WireGuard tunnel

  • The most obvious usage of this is to give containers (like Docker containers, for example) a WireGuard interface as its sole interface.

  • A less obvious usage, but extremely powerful nonetheless, is to use this characteristic of WireGuard for redirecting all of your ordinary Internet traffic over WireGuard.

  • It turns out that we can route all Internet traffic via WireGuard using network namespaces, rather than the classic routing table hacks.

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  • Appearance:
    • Tinc VPN appears as IP level network device
    • ZeroTier appears as Ethernet level network port
    • WireGuard appears as IP level network device
  • Connectivity provided:
    • Tinc VPN automatically gives full mesh routing
    • ZeroTier automatically gives full mesh routing
    • WireGuard gives point-to-point connection like SSH (mesh routing is a todo)
  • Node/Host Configuration:
    • Tinc VPN host is configured with public/private key pair, in a config file
    • ZeroTier node is configured with public/private key pair, then generates a VL1 ZeroTier Address
    • WireGuard host is configured with public/private key pair and ACL, in a config file
  • Network Configuration:
    • Tinc VPN network is configured by hosts exchanging (out-of-band) exported config files for a specified "network name"
      • rest of network is exchanged in-band
    • ZeroTier network is configured with knowledge of "roots" and with VL2 ZeroTier Network ID (VL1 ZeroTier Address of the controller and network number)
      • rest of network is exchanged in-band
    • WireGuard network is configured by hosts sharing public keys (out-of-band), connect via IP Address corresponding to keys
      • IP roaming is exchanged in-band
  • Number of network connections:
    • Tinc VPN hosts can connect to many "network names" concurrently
    • ZeroTier nodes can connect to multiple VL2 ZeroTier Network IDs concurrently
    • WireGuard hosts can connect to many other hosts concurrently
  • Deployment:
    • Tinc VPN is deployed on the VM hosting the pods/containers/processes (could be in the container base image)
      • no explicit interoperability with kubernetes to manipulate pod/container network namespaces
    • ZeroTier is deployed on the VM hosting the pods/containers/processes (could be in the container base image)
      • no explicit interoperability with kubernetes to manipulate pod/container network namespaces
    • WireGuard is deployed on the VM hosting the pods/containers/processes (could be in the container base image)
      • no explicit interoperability with kubernetes to manipulate pod/container network namespaces
  • Single-Points-of-Failure:
    • Tinc VPN runs daemon processes on each host (one per network name), topology is peer-to-peer
    • ZeroTier runs a global "planet" root server called "Earth" apparently as testing network and casual communications
      • Unclear about how users can deploy their own "planet" root servers
      • Users can deploy their own "moon" root servers
    • WireGuard runs daemon processes on each host, topology is peer-to-peer
  • Scaling:
    • Tinc VPN can add new hosts to existing network names without altering configurations of existing hosts (invitations dynamically create a configuration)
    • ZeroTier can add new nodes to existing network IDs without altering configurations of existing nodes (Network ID is obscure but public information)
      • Unclear whether adding new root servers requires a restart
    • WireGuard can add new hosts but requires both ends of the connection to be updated and present in the ACL of host config file
  • Access Control:
    • Tinc VPN has control by the exchange of exported host config files (an invitation is effectively an embedded host config file)
    • ZeroTier nodes need to be authorised after attempting to connect the network ID, but it can be turned off to allow "public" networks
    • WireGuard has control by the exchange of host public keys and ACL in host config file
  • tbc

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