Tinc (protocol)

Tinc
Original author(s)Guus Sliepen, Ivo Timmermans, Wessel Dankers
Developer(s)The Tinc development team
Initial release14 November 1998 (1998-11-14)
Stable release
1.0.36 / 26 August 2019; 5 years ago (2019-08-26)[1]
Preview release
1.1pre18 / 27 June 2021; 3 years ago (2021-06-27)[2]
Repository
Written inC
PlatformLinux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, iOS, Android[3]
TypeVPN
LicenseGPL
Websitewww.tinc-vpn.org Edit this on Wikidata

Tinc is an open-source, self-routing, mesh networking protocol and software implementation used for compressed and encrypted virtual private networks. It was started in 1998 by Guus Sliepen, Ivo Timmermans, and Wessel Dankers, and released as a GPL-licensed project.

Platforms

Tinc is available on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, iOS (jailbroken only), Android with full support for IPv6.[4]

Future goals

The authors of Tinc have goals of providing a platform that is secure, stable, reliable, scalable, easily configurable, and flexible.[4]

Embedded technologies

Tinc uses OpenSSL or LibreSSL as the encryption library and gives the options of compressing communications with zlib for "best compression" or LZO for "fast compression".[4]

Projects that use tinc

  • Freifunk has tinc enabled in their routers as of October 2006.[5]
  • OpenWrt has an installable package for tinc.
  • OPNsense, an open source router and firewall distribution, has a plugin for Tinc
  • pfSense has an installable package in the 2.3 release.
  • Tomato variants Shibby and FreshTomato include Tinc support.
  • NYC Mesh uses tinc to connect parts of the mesh over the public internet that would be otherwise out of range.[6]

See also

  • stunnel, encrypts any TCP connection (single port service) over SSL
  • OpenVPN, an open source SSL VPN solution
  • VTUN, an open source SSL VPN solution that can bridge Ethernet

References

  1. ^ Sliepen, Guus (26 August 2019). "Tinc version 1.0.36 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  2. ^ Sliepen, Guus (27 June 2021). "Tinc version 1.1pre18 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  3. ^ "Tinc supported platforms". 22 Aug 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  4. ^ a b c "Tinc main page". 4 Nov 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  5. ^ "Freifunk firmware 1.4 is out". The Mesh Dot Org. Archived from the original on 2007-09-04. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
  6. ^ "Frequently asked questions". nycmesh.net. Retrieved 2021-06-21.