Tailscale
Class projects often result in client/server or peer-to-peer softweare development. Trying to demonstrate this in a classroom environmnet can be challenging. Teams often wind up using S3 or some other online hosting service to provide a publlicly available server for the project. This has several drawbacks:
- Cost (not large unless lots of data is pulled down, but it still costs money)
- Time must be spent securing the server from the world
- Limited resources (to keep cost down)
- Lack of permanence (usually disappears after class demo to save money)
Another approach is to stand up a server at home and devlop there. This has it sown issues:
- Building a server at home (or a VM or a docker instance)
- Creating a way for team members to access the server
- Enabling on-campus access for the demo
- Maintaining security of server (since it is now accessible to outside world)
- Slow upstream link from home
Tailscale can help. If you build a server(s) at home to host the project, Tailscale can enable you to provide limited access to a limited number of folks. It essentialy builds a VPN for each authorized client to conect to. You do not have to do anything to your home router. The server is not open ot the internet, so no new security holes have been opened up. You can do secure, shared development on a home server from anywhere.
Tailscale can do many things. It will take a fair amount of study to understand all of its capabilities. To just use it as a simple VPN mfor a projecxt can be figured out fairly quickly. Installation is pretty painless.
Tailscale is a commercial product designed to allow companies to extend their internal LAN to workers regardless of location while maintaining security. They provide a free tier so that folks can do non-commercial testing and use (obviously they hope that tech folks will use it for free, like it and then convince their companies to pay for it).
I will add more here in the future. Here are some links to get you started:
- Tailscale
- Tailscale Quickstart
- XDA: How to set up a powerful home VPN with Tailscale
- XDA: I use Tailscale to remotely access my self-hosted services - here's how
- How to use Tailscale: Step-By-Step Setup Guide for Beginners
- How to Use Tailscale VPN: Setting Up & Usage Tutorial in 2025
- Using Tailscale to Easily Create Secure and Private Tunnels
- Comprehensive guide to setting up Tailscale to securely access your home network from anywhere
- Tailscale VPN: A Simple Guide for Beginners
- How I use Tailscale to connect my devices