4 questions about tinc's VPN

[Guus Sliepen]

On Fri, Nov 24, 2006 at 12:05:23PM +0100, EleGoS wrote:

> I'm totally new to the concept 'self-made VPNs' :P

What do you mean by "self-made"?

> question n.1: I'm behind a router. This router is configurable, but I'm 
> also behind a provider's NAT (private IPs with a common public IP). Will 
> tinc work, or it will do as hamachi does (problems connecting to me)? 
> (in hamachi there is a 'yellow' indicator on me for users of the same 
> provider [passages: |private IP| -> |public IP| -> |hamachi server| -> 
> |public IP| -> |private IP| -> |router's private IP|])

If you are behind a NAT, you should probably add "TCPOnly = yes" to your
tinc.conf. Once a tinc daemon behind a NAT makes a connection to another
tinc daemon, packets can go both ways.

> question n.2: a tinc VPN uses the server's bandwidth (so all the 
> transmissions pass from the server) or is a P2P system (the server only 
> re-addresses the connections)?

It's peer-to-peer. There is no central server with tinc. Tinc also does
not make a distinction between "client" and "server".

> question n.3: if a client enters a server, does the client 'see' all the 
> others connected to the server?

Yes, each tinc daemon knows about all other tinc daemons in the same
VPN.

> question n.4: what about the public and private keys? What to give to 
> the clients? What the clients must generate?

You typically let every tinc daemon generate its own public/private
keypair. You then exchange public keys with those other tinc daemons for
which you have a ConnectTo line in your tinc.conf. You don't have to
ConnectTo all other daemons in the VPN, just a few is enough, tinc will
create a full mesh network itself from there on.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groet / with kind regards,
     Guus Sliepen <guus at tinc-vpn.org>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://brouwer.uvt.nl/pipermail/tinc/attachments/20061124/73bddaf0/attachment.pgp