4 ms·
Learned this the hard way while setting up OpenVPN a few years ago. In the configuration file, there's an option to use TCP as the transport protocol, and being
by donw 16y ago
Learned this the hard way while setting up OpenVPN a few years ago. In the configuration file, there's an option to use TCP as the transport protocol, and being young and naïve, I figured that it was best to have a reliable protocol underpinning my VPN.
What I didn't stop to consider, was that all of the traffic going over the VPN was also TCP, and as such was reliable enough on its own.
Took me a week to figure out why connections would drop randomly, transfers would magically slow down and speed up, and all other forms of network-based mayhem.
- simias 16y agoUnfortunately it's not always feasible to route UDP properly everywhere. I'm currently using OpenVPN over TCP because the NAT here won't let me punch a hole for UDP, so I can assert that, while not ideal, it works well enough for web browsing assuming you have a good enough internet connection to back it up.
- ay 16y agoTCP minions is there to solve precisely this problem: http://dedis.cs.yale.edu/2009/tng/papers/pfldnet10-slides.pdf http://dedis.cs.yale.edu/2009/tng/papers/pfldnet10-slides.pd... TCP over TCP works well enough as soon as your packet loss is small enough to be within the fast retransmit. As soon as you have to timeout, all bets are off.
- simias 16y agoThanks for this link, it's an interesting read. Where can I find out more about this TCP minion? The slides don't mention any external reference and Google only brings me back to this PDF.
- ay 16y agoCatch up with Jana on twitter @janaiyengar to check if he has more details to share. I think having minions is a great idea to get the networking out of (TCP|UDP) ghetto.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoInteresting. I've been using OpenVPN in this mode for years, without issue.