Comment by TZubiri
12 hours ago
It's an official tailscale product no?
Fwiw, I don't think vendor lock-in is a bad thing, but being open source doesn't mean there's no vendor-lock in. If a client builds their system on top of an open source technology, then switching away from that dependency would have a cost, even if that cost is engineering man-hours.
If tailscale does not work out of the box with netcat, and requires a custom additional dependency to work, it raises the question that tailscale will not work out of the box with other tools like tcpdump or stunnel and apache, and I will need to install other custom dependencies like taildump, tailtunned, tailapache.
When compared to other solutions that integrate without additional effort, installing vendor-specific dependency forks/clones means that there is an additional vendor lock-in.
This isn't due to tailscale not supporting or working with netcat; you can nc to an address on your tailnet just fine.
This is using the infrastructure tailscale set up for a different purpose. Rather than requiring a tailnet or even an account anywhere, you can tailcat between any two endpoint. Tailscale is there because it runs the DERP relays which get the client's pubkey to the server, brokers the connection, and coordinates holepunching.