Hey all,
I think I managed to get this all installed and working on a new asus router/Merlin thanks to (jksmurf). Dont understand much on how it all works but diggin through docs are easy enough. So thanks again to everyone.
Great that you got it up and running, it’s satisfying when it works.
I’m in the same boat as you TBH, I am not really that clued up on networking or Tailscale and @Viktor Jaep’s intention with TAILMON was to provide the platform for installing it on our little Routers, but to be fair to him, expanding outside that to all things Tailscale is just Pandora’s Box.
Tailscale’s website has a plethora of information on tailscale itself (including use cases) and whilst much of the more technical items are over my head, to their credit they do provide some good resources for more fundamental questions in the first instance.
So what I’m going to do is to attempt to respond
briefly here and provide some responses with reference links so you can investigate further, and if I’m wrong, I hope to be corrected.
The reason I have need of this in the first place is due to having a 5g modem providing Internet at my office location. Typical CGNAT. I have about 30 security cameras I need to view, get motion, alarms in real time.
My use-case is also CGNAT and for you a subnet-router attached to tailscale at that end gives you the possibility to access all the devices in that subnet that sit behind (or even alongside) it.
The question I have is how does Tailscale work/handle a vpn connection like this between two locations?
---location 1 is a typical fiber isp.
---location 2 is 5g Tmobile isp, CGNAT situation.
Just need to access both locations as a typical vpn viewing one big network.
Additional question I have as I still havent gotten my head around how Tailscale works...
Do I only need to connect the Routers at both ends in Tailscale in order to see everything behind the routers? Like cameras, servers, etc...??
Yes. I believe you need to set up
site to site (TAILMON does this) and you only need one Router at each end configured as a subnet router. You can then access each device behind that remote subnet router “as if” it were local by typing in its IP address. From that link:
“Use site-to-site layer 3 (L3) networking to connect two subnets on your Tailscale network with each other. The two subnets are each required to provide a subnet router but their devices do not need to install Tailscale. This scenario applies to Linux subnet routers only.”
Or
Does every single device assigned an ip behind each router also needs to be added to Tailscale?
No. See above. They will of course have their local IP; they do not need to be added to Tailscale. Once you have established the connection to that remote subnet, then WebGUI, ping, SSH are all conducted using their original subnet IP address “as if” they were local.
Lastly....
Im not a big fan of having to connect to tailscale on the website, set up an account and have my data go through yet another strangers servers so this all works.... I really want my own private point to point vpn servers over public internet using my own static ips. I need a high level overview on how to go about this...
I’m not 100% sure about this side of things,
however see here.
“Is my traffic routed through your servers?
No. Tailscale routes traffic over the shortest path possible. In most cases, this is a direct, peer-to-peer connection. In cases where a direct connection cannot be established, devices will communicate by bouncing traffic off of one or more geographically distributed relay servers, called DERPs. The traffic that bounces through our relay servers is encrypted and no different security-wise than the other dozen hops your Internet packets already make when passing over the network from point A to B.”
You can actually see, in the TAILMON status window, if you have a direct or DERP connection.
Im done with the monthly nickel dime subscriptions for ddns, vpn, etc... services that go on forever.... this bothers me way more than security issues as my data is still going through someone I dont know.
again, thanks for the help jksmurf...
Provided your needs and numbers of devices on your tailnet remains below the free vs paid threshold, then you won’t be subject to those subscriptions. I would comment however (I have no skin in the game here, not trying to sell any service) that if this is really to safeguard your business you might want to seek professional advice.
HTH
k.