Top all-time · #533
ZeroTier
Company blog · zerotier.com/blogsystemssecurity
ZeroTier is the company blog at zerotier.com, writing about systems and security. Since 2013, 112 different Hacker News readers have linked it 211 times, most often “ZeroTier - Simple Software Defined Networking”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers mostly cite ZeroTier as a mesh VPN alternative to WireGuard, Tailscale and Nebula. The few comments on its writing point to posts on NAT traversal and DNS, and to its manual.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Next-generation connectivity and cybersecurity. ZeroTier One connects any device, anywhere. ZeroTier Quantum delivers post-quantum, CNSA 2.0-aligned networks.
Most-linked posts?
- ZeroTier - Simple Software Defined Networking52 people · 73 mentions · first linked 2013-07-05
- "Dropbox for VPN"10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2013-07-05
- ZeroTier simple and powerful VPN, SDN, and SD-WAN with a single system8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2017-07-07
- /7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2017-11-25
- The State of NAT Traversal3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2014-08-26
- ZeroTier: On the GPL to BSL Transition3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-11-06
- /pricing/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-01-29
- ZeroTier 2.0 Status3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-25
- ZeroTier Releases LF: A Fully Decentralized Fully Replicated Key/Value Store3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-06-30
- /manual/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-08-27
What Hacker News says?
ZeroTier is searching for someone on a one-time consulting basis (with possible ongoing support) to create a macOS Catalina (and future) DriverKit based Ethernet "tap" driver for use with our ZeroTier network virtualization product. https://www.zerotier.com/ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit It should provide an API that allows the easy creation and destruction of tap devices, preferably integrate…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring right now?”Submitted The Horror in the Standard Library as a story · 830 points
HN discussionPhilosophizing on your blog seems to be the new way to tilt at windmills. If you're actually interested in self-hosting, https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted is a great resource for self-hosted apps. Roll up your sleeves, get prepared to get lost in documentation, and have some fun! You'll realize the tradeoffs of what to self-host and what not-to quickly as you start playing around with actual t…
Comment linking /
on “Start Self Hosting”Submitted The IPv6 Numeric IP Format Is a Usability Problem as a story · 323 points
HN discussionI thought about doing something similar, but with Slack's Nebula or with ZeroTier (v2, which is not released yet). They're specifically designed for this kind of overlay network if I'm not mistaken, taking care of node additions and removals automatically. Nebula with fixed "lighthouses", ZeroTier with a decentralized KV store. Did you look into these as alternatives? https://github.com/slackhq/nebula https://www.ze…
Comment linking /zerotier-2-0-status/
on “WireGuard is now in Linus' tree”Submitted The State of NAT Traversal as a story · 189 points
HN discussionThere's https://zerotier.com , https://netbird.io , https://defined.net , https://github.com/tonarino/innernet and likely many more.
Comment linking /
on “Tailscale raises $100M”Submitted Incident Response to September 20th 2021 as a story · 132 points
HN discussionThere exists ZeroTier too, which can be self-hosted. [1]: https://www.zerotier.com/
Comment linking /
on “Tailscale raises $100M”Submitted ZeroTier - Simple Software Defined Networking as a story · 111 points
HN discussionShameless plug, but some of the Nebula team (including myself) works on https://www.defined.net/ (proprietary managed Nebula networks.) Also, ZeroTier is "open-source ish." They use the BSL license for most of their code ( https://www.zerotier.com/blog/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/ ) and I believe you can self-host ( https://docs.zerotier.com/selfhost/ )
Comment linking /blog/on-the-gpl-to-bsl-transition/
on “Tailscale is pretty useful”Submitted ZeroTier: Network Virtualization Everywhere as a story · 107 points
HN discussionAre you after the LE part specifically? If not, I'm quite happy with mdns and the seems to be a unicast version available too: https://www.zerotier.com/2021/05/06/zeronsd-unicast-dns-reso... For public domains, I've got a quick script which mirrors what appears in avahi to route53, so that's one way to deal with certs.
Comment linking /2021/05/06/zeronsd-unicast-dns-resolution-for-zerotier-now-in-alpha/
on “Tailscale SSH”Submitted ZeroTier 2.0 Status as a story · 98 points
HN discussionAnd for anyone looking at Tailscale, I should also mention ZeroTier ( https://www.zerotier.com/ ). In my opinion they have better tech, but they are pretty bad at packaging it, and bad at making it work for actual use-cases. Tailscale seems to be much more clever around building out stuff (like this one, SSH) that actually goes all the way for a particular use-case. ZeroTier feels more like a building block, where y…
Comment linking /
on “Tailscale SSH”Submitted ZeroTier Business SSO as a story · 97 points
HN discussionSo happy to see this! We created ZeroTier for the world this is talking about. :) https://www.zerotier.com/ /shameless but on-topic plug
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on “Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud”Submitted Introducing Network Containers as a story · 82 points
HN discussionYou've made me look at ZeroTier. It's a bit of a shame you are being down voted because ZeroTier looks to be original, clever, and open source. Your down voting is caused by you used the word MAC without defining what it is, so naturally people think it's a "Media Access Control Address", or a "Message Authentication Code", but it's far more complex than either. It is an address so it does perform the same function…
Comment linking /manual/
on “WireGuard Gives Linux a Faster, More Secure VPN”Submitted AES-GMAC-CTR (SIV) as a story · 74 points
HN discussionWhat is the difference between this and ZeroTier? https://www.zerotier.com/
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on “WireGuard Gives Linux a Faster, More Secure VPN”Submitted Alice and Bob, ZeroTier's new root clusters as a story · 10 points
HN discussionThat's been going on for a while now, and is due to many factors: https://www.zerotier.com/blog/?p=6
Comment linking /blog/?p=6
on “FCC approves plan to consider paid priority on Internet”Submitted ZeroTier Releases LF: A Fully Decentralized Fully Replicated Key/Value Store as a story · 8 points
HN discussion> As a network-ignoramus, who likes cryptography, I’ve long dreamt of a networking protocol where endpoints are defined, primarily, by a public key. All messages would be encrypted with the destination public key, and signed by the source private key. See https://zerotier.com/
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on “The world in which IPv6 was a good design”Submitted Introducing Network Containers as a story · 6 points
HN discussionCheck out ZeroTier It implements a virtual ethernet layer using cryptographic identities underneath. Here's the relevant section on the address computation from the manual: https://www.zerotier.com/manual.shtml#2_1_2
Comment linking /manual.shtml
on “The world in which IPv6 was a good design”Submitted ZeroTier Raises Seed Funding to Directly Connect the World's Devices as a story · 6 points
HN discussionFor use on a VPS with an external IP, I've had success with this https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install For use to connect to home network drives, I've used ZeroTier https://www.zerotier.com/ . I've never had an external IP for home internet, so I always ran in headaches trying to do a home VPN to channel my internet traffic while I'm out and about (and that's why I use a VPN on a VPS for that).
Comment linking /
on “Setting up a home VPN server with WireGuard”Submitted ZeroTier One 1.0.0: Better, Faster, Cheaper as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
