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Tailscale describes itself as a "Zero Trust identity-based connectivity platform" that can replace a VPN, SASE, and PAM. That's a lot of buzzwords in a sentence, but it is primarily pitched as an enterprise tool, not really a consumer app. An example of a three-device setup in Tailscale's macOS client. It is a way to create a private mesh network between your devices, or more simply, so your devices can communicate directly with each other. Once set up, your iPhone could connect to your Mac over a cellular connection, or to a computer in a completely different country, all treated as if it's o

The whole point of Tailscale is to establish a network that's somewhat similar to your home or office network between devices. Even if they're not on the same physical network. Tailscale refers to this as a Tailnet. At a bare minimum, that means you can connect to a server while remote to access files, or to upload them. This is a fairly useful service for home users. Tailscale's web admin view. Devices on a Tailnet are listed, alongside 100-range iP addresses assigned to that hardware. Since there's file sharing, you could also use it for facilities such as remote access. You could control yo

Tailscale is all based on the idea of getting devices within a group to communicate with each other, even if there are obstacles in the way. It all starts by having an account set up and clients installed on your devices. There are clients for macOS and iOS, as well as Windows, Linux, and Android. The base of the platform is WireGuard, which creates encrypted tunnels between devices. This is normally between the user's device and a VPN gateway or server, but in this case it's between devices. Rather than using a central hub server that all traffic is ferried through, the client devices connect