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Maybe you can. My partner, who'd just like to look at the cute kitten pictures I added to our shared photo album, definitely can't. My dad who just wants to thr

Maybe you can. My partner, who'd just like to look at the cute kitten pictures I added to our shared photo album, definitely can't. My dad who just wants to throw a genealogy file on my fileserver can't, either. I'm very much reminded of the infamous dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 :)

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Yes, and anytime someone points out that existing tech works, someone pulls out the Dropbox comment as if it proves that every new shiny is better than the existing options. In any event, if you're working with people who are technical enough to handle Tailscale, you can stick the ssh one-liner in a script file and tell them to double-click it to launch the tunnel. Or use a graphical SSH client with a port-forwarding profile, if that's you like. Tailscale has real advantages, but I'm skeptical of ease of use really being one.
- groby_b 5y ago
  You didn't point out that "existing tech works". You pointed out that you can achieve a rough facsimile with existing tech, provided you're willing to invest significantly more energy. That is the essence of the dropbox comment. Of course you can solve it with existing tech, but it takes a bunch of effort and is by far not as smooth. The achievement is not the technology itself. You can be skeptical about ease of use all you want, "Log in with a IdP you already log in to, and then just open the site" is miles easier than "just launch the tunnel via script" and all the debug steps that come invariably when the tunnel malfunctions. I know this is hard to see when to you, running an ssh tunnel is second nature. But if I gave my family a "graphical SSH client with a port-forwarding profile", they'd rightfully yell at me. These are steps they neither want to nor need to be comfortable with. And, heck, it's easier for me too. One less thing to worry about. Somebody is running a whole bunch of infra for me, and has spent a whole lot of time addressing all the edge cases that "one-liner script" doesn't address. I happily pay money for that, any time.
- hiq 5y ago
  > you can stick the ssh one-liner in a script file Which ssh one-liner? You can't ssh into a machine that's not publicly reachable without some more hoops. I thought that was one of the points of Tailscale, taking care of the Wireguard "advanced" setup.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

Yes, and anytime someone points out that existing tech works, someone pulls out the Dropbox comment as if it proves that every new shiny is better than the existing options. In any event, if you're working with people who are technical enough to handle Tailscale, you can stick the ssh one-liner in a script file and tell them to double-click it to launch the tunnel. Or use a graphical SSH client with a port-forwarding profile, if that's you like. Tailscale has real advantages, but I'm skeptical of ease of use really being one.

groby_b 5y ago
You didn't point out that "existing tech works". You pointed out that you can achieve a rough facsimile with existing tech, provided you're willing to invest significantly more energy. That is the essence of the dropbox comment. Of course you can solve it with existing tech, but it takes a bunch of effort and is by far not as smooth. The achievement is not the technology itself. You can be skeptical about ease of use all you want, "Log in with a IdP you already log in to, and then just open the site" is miles easier than "just launch the tunnel via script" and all the debug steps that come invariably when the tunnel malfunctions. I know this is hard to see when to you, running an ssh tunnel is second nature. But if I gave my family a "graphical SSH client with a port-forwarding profile", they'd rightfully yell at me. These are steps they neither want to nor need to be comfortable with. And, heck, it's easier for me too. One less thing to worry about. Somebody is running a whole bunch of infra for me, and has spent a whole lot of time addressing all the edge cases that "one-liner script" doesn't address. I happily pay money for that, any time.
hiq 5y ago
> you can stick the ssh one-liner in a script file Which ssh one-liner? You can't ssh into a machine that's not publicly reachable without some more hoops. I thought that was one of the points of Tailscale, taking care of the Wireguard "advanced" setup.