DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling

Tailscale Everything

Jan 5, 2024

Bret interviews Alex Kretzschmar from Tailscale about their universal VPN tool. They talk about the benefits of Tailscale, including easy device-to-device connections and seamless network experience. They also discuss the use cases of Tailscale in Kubernetes and the challenges of managing VPN connections. Additionally, they touch on networking products, Magic DNS, key exchange process, and the 'swarm fans' community.

55:06

Creator website

Episode guests

Alex Kretzschmar

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Quick takeaways

Tailscale is a universal VPN that provides easy access to remote resources, connecting teams, devices, and development environments.

Tailscale offers a wide range of features, including a client for Apple TV and a Kubernetes operator, making it a versatile tool for different use cases.

The podcast discusses the concept of GitOps and highlights its importance in managing infrastructure programmatically as code, enabling seamless collaboration.

Deep dives

Overview of Tail Scale

Tail Scale is a universal VPN that provides easy access to remote resources, connecting teams, devices, development environments, and Kubernetes clusters. It offers seamless VPN connectivity, allowing users to connect personal devices to home server labs or temporarily run servers on the internet. Tail Scale continues to add new features, such as a client for Apple TV and a Kubernetes operator.

Seamless Access, Simplified Connections

01:18

Simplifying Authentication Through Tail Nets

01:25

Introduction

2min

Introduction and Benefits of Tailscale

15min

Exploring Networking Diagrams and Simplifying VPNs

5min

Advantages of GitOps and the versatility of tail scale in the context of Kubernetes

4min

Challenges and Concerns in Managing VPN Connections

2min

Networking products and Magic DNS

5min

Key Exchange Process and Trunking in Tail Scale Server

18min

New Public Keys and Swarm Fans

5min

Bret is joined by Alex Kretzschmar to talk about Tailscale, a universal VPN that connects teams, devices, and development environments for easy access to remote resources.

Alex and I talk about projects he's worked on in containers over the years and then we quickly get into Tailscale and talking about why he joined the team there.

Tailscale is one of those tools that's hard to put down. I've used it for years to connect my personal devices to my home server lab when I'm traveling or servers I might have on the internet that I run temporarily. It connects them all together in a seamless VPN. The product itself comes up a lot in our Discord server when people are talking about needing some secure remote access to something anywhere in the world.

Tailscale keeps adding more and more features, I can't really keep up, so we had Alex on the show to talk about all the new stuff, including a client for Apple TV, which at first, I didn't quite understand why, but now it totally makes sense; and a Kubernetes operator that does some slick things around connecting engineers on their local machines to clusters. I found Alex at the Tailscale booth at KubeCon this year and invited him on the show to talk about this relatively new yet ubiquitous-feeling product.

The live recording of the complete show from November 30, 2023 is on YouTube (Ep. #243)

★Topics★
Tailscale website
Headscale website
Tailscale Community
Tailscale Docker Mod Blog Post
ID Headers Demo
Devrel Demo

Creators & Guests

Cristi Cotovan - Editor
Beth Fisher - Producer
Bret Fisher - Host
Alex Kretzschmar - Guest

(00:00) - Tailscale Everything
(19:37) - Tailscale Licensing
(28:24) - Tailscale vs Other Networking Products
(32:33) - Server and Key Exchange
(33:50) - Does Tailscale Support 'Trunking'?
(39:20) - Client for Mikrotik
(40:06) - Docker Integration
(43:46) - Tailscale Server on Your Own Hardware
(46:57) - Apple TV Client
(48:54) - Performance Breakthroughs
(50:52) - Key Exchange Mechanism

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Homepage bretfisher.com

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DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling

Tailscale Everything

Episode guests