Firezone and Zero-Trust Network Security with Thomas Eizinger

episode 19 — Firezone and Zero-Trust Network Security with Thomas Eizinger.

In this episode of Netstack.fm, Glen talks with Thomas Eizinger from Firezone about designing a zero trust enterprise VPN built on top of WireGuard. They break down how modern VPNs work in practice, covering virtual network adapters, split tunneling, DNS interception, policy based access, and secure packet routing using WireGuard, ICE, and TURN relays.

The discussion highlights how Firezone differs from legacy VPNs by focusing on performance, reliability, and minimal user friction, while also touching on the role of Rust and Elixir in Firezone’s architecture and the long term importance of IPv6 adoption.

Learn more:

• https://github.com/firezone/firezone — Firezone main repository
• https://github.com/firezone/firezone/tree/main/rust/relay/ebpf-turn-router — Firezone eBPF in kernel relay router
• https://www.firezone.dev/kb/architecture/critical-sequences#detailed-connection-setup — Firezone Connection Setup
• https://www.wireguard.com/papers/wireguard.pdf — WireGuard whitepaper
• https://github.com/firezone/boringtun — Firezone fork of boringtun user space WireGuard
• https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8656 — TURN RFC 8656
• https://x.com/firezonehq — Firezone on X
• https://x.com/oetzn — Thomas Eizinger on X
• https://hachyderm.io/@wheezle — Thomas Eizinger on Mastodon
• https://github.com/thomaseizinger — Thomas Eizinger on GitHub

Rama

If you like this podcast you might also like our modular network framework in Rust: https://ramaproxy.org

Chapters

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:42 Introduction to Thomas Eizinger
• 05:19 Firezone's Turn implementation
• 11:00 Understanding VPNs and Firezone's Approach
• 29:27 Legacy VPNs vs. Firezone: A New Era of Networking
• 36:19 Firezone is opensource
• 37:27 Zero-Trust VPNs
• 40:28 What is WireGuard
• 43:36 Firezone's Integration with WireGuard
• 50:19 Handling Connection Failures
• 58:00 Geolocation and Relay Selection
• 01:04:45 Elixir Developer Experience (DX)
• 01:10:19 IPv6 Adoption and Future Considerations
• 01:15:03 Outro

Netstack.FM

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Music for this episode was composed by Dj Mailbox. Listen to his music at https://on.soundcloud.com/4MRyPSNj8FZoVGpytj