Currently, and I could be wrong, the alternative to a Pi 4 from Pine64 now would be a Pine64’s Quartz64 Model B. A Star64 might be interesting, but that’s RISC-V so who knows what OS you could boot on it currently and if it would even be stable.

Plus with the Quartz64 Model B, who knows if you’ll able to get a good case for it. There’s the $28 “Model B” ALUMINUM WATERPROOF ENCLOSURE, but, eh, no thanks. There’s the open enclosure, but that’s also a no for me. I want a case I can hide the device itself, the cables, put a heatsink and fan on, be able to use an SSD with USB connect and connect a power supply all stuffed in a case. Which you can find plenty of for Raspberry Pi’s.

Not to mention the Pi 5 isn’t even out yet, and it’s entirely possible it’ll be better than the Quartz64 Model B, on top of having a ton of accessories. Plus, I can Pi up practically any Pi at the Microcenter or similar store near me as opposed to having to pay for good shipping.

I’m totally for having alternatives to the Pi, heck I might pick up a Quartz64 Model B if I can find a case, but a lot of alternatives don’t have the same support and accessories the Pis do.

I got a RPi 3B as my Pi-Hole that I’ll eventually use as my Wireguard VPN, too. Hoping to get another Pi device for hosting Jellyfin on.

Outside of the (theoretical) technical specs of the OPi5 being better, I’ve heard/read mixed things about OPis. Some say they’re a good alternative, some say they’re cheap Chinese-made crap. I’ve had no experience myself, so take it with a grain of salt.

I’m interested to see more data on the RPi5 when it’s out, as to figure out if it’s worth getting over trying an OPi5 for a home media system with Jellyfin.

Tailscale just partnered with Mullvad so this works out of the box for that setup: https://tailscale.com/blog/mullvad-integration/

Ah I literally saw that post here a few days ago! How could I forget about that? I might just switch over to Mullvad. Way cheaper, I can downgrade the Proton account I have (I’ll still use their email service until I have time and figure out how to self-host my own email) and I can use Mullvads encrypted DNS servers until I can configure DNS-over-HTTPS + Unbound on my PiHole.

Force tailscale to route all traffic through the DERP servers?

No no, sorry. I mean can I still have all my network traffic go through some VPN service (mine or a providers) while Tailscale is activated?

So if I’m torrenting something, I don’t have to turn off Tailscale on that device and switch on a VPN before I start the torrent process?

I’m going to guess either “no” or “yes, on paper, it’s possible.”

your traffic is not routed through the Headscale server

Damn, well is there a means of using both Headscale and routing your traffic somewhere else?

My big reason for looking into Tailscale/Headscale is the ability to connect to my devices at home, at the office or a VPS that’s in a different state/province and having the ability to use my PiHole as my DNS, but I would still like my network traffic to be (mostly, as an VPN doesn’t save you from other tracking methods) protected.

To a first approximation, Tailscale/Headscale don’t route and traffic.

Ah, well damn. Is there a way to achieve this while using Tailscale as well, or is that even recommended?

Are younreally expecting 10gb/s speeds over your encrypted links?

Eh, no. You have a good point there. I mean in a more perfect world that would be wonderful, but that’s not the case.

but your traffic is not routed through their servers,

Hmm so correct me if I’m wrong (I probably am), but with a basic Wireguard setup you’d have one device act as the server and other devices that connect to it are the clients. But can’t you have 2 devices that act as servers/clients to each other, and then have other devices connect to them and the connect with bounce between those two devices?

I’m assuming that if this is even achievable, it’s not something Tailscale or Headscale will let you do.

are you the only user or is this for some family members also?

Probably just me and my fiance at the moment.

you can 9/10 just get a basic 5$ or less gigabit VPS.

Sweet, good to know!

$20 per month for 400mb of email + a VPN was an acceptable cost maybe in 1998, now it’s insanely expensive

Yea I have a business plan with Proton. No idea why I upgraded but I remember doing it.

And then you need to tell us why you’re using the VPN. Just privacy when using unsecured wifi? Or ISP tracking paranoia? Or torrenting?

Yes, yes and yes lol. Also I would like to connect to devices privacy and see if I can make use of my PiHole when I’m not on my home network where the PiHole is located.

I have a business account with them. I don’t really remember why I upgraded to a business plan. Might downgrade it to save a few bucks for now.

If you are not trusting Proton, you should not trust Tailscale as well, in my opinion.

True, although I don’t know if I say I don’t trust them. It’s more of a sense of skepticism that’s always in the back of my mind when it comes to any service.

Another question is that why are you paying $19 for that? They have $10-12 plans that come with 500 GB storage, emails with 3 custom domains and high-speed VPN.

I have a business account with them. I’m trying to remember why I upgraded…

Another question that pops in my mind is, why do you need a VPN? Do you need to connect to your services privately, or do you just need to change your IP for (relatively) better privacy?

At this point, if I’m going to do be doing more self-hosting I’d want the ability to connect to services privately. The other thing is that with Tailscale I can set my PiHole as my DNS server. That way any device on the tailnet gets the ad blocking as well. Plus, if I can get unbound with DNS-over-HTTPS (via stubby) setup on it then I have a pretty secure and fairly private setup. That’s kind of what’s got me thinking about moving to Tailscale.

Interesting, thank you for your response!

I don’t know why I didn’t think about the fact of having network specific ACLs is probably something we’ve developed since the dawn of the internet.

Also it makes sense that the configurations would be hosted in one place, and I see what Headscale is for now.

Maybe I’ll dump my VPN provider for Tailscale or setup a Headscale instance on a VPS some day. I also saw Netbird, which their $8/month plan gives unlimited users. Seems slightly similar to Tailscale.

Hmm, I guess my question would be how does this all work? I mean, is it not possible to configure STUN/DERP services yourself? Or add control lists yourself?

I’m curious as to how all of this is done, not just to see if it’s possible (even if it’d be a headache) but for confirmation. Granted, networking is my worse subject when it comes to any related to computers. For ACLs, I guess Apparmor and/or SELinux profiles would be configured? The removing a key I can understand why it’s be a nightmare yourself, but how does Tailscale do it where it’s just so simple?

EDIT: Another question I have is how does Tailscale work when I have a VPN for securing network traffic when browsing the internet etc.? Or is that just seamless?

I’m curious, what’s the benefit of using Tailscale over setting up Wireguard yourself? Is it just not having to do all of the setup? Or do I misunderstand what the main use of Tailscale is?

Find a static site generator you can tolerate and style things the way you want, have the static files be generated, pick your favorite way to host and server up those static files.

It’s not self hosted, but you might like 750words as well.