After a very enlightening discussion in a previous thread, I decided to plunge into a mesh type network to connect my various servers and devices.
Nebula has been fairly straight forward to set up so far, but I’m having some trouble with the details and am curious if anybody has successfully got Nebula up and running for their network.
Installation on Linux platforms has been a breeze. Windows I can’t seem to get working. I was able to install but the service refuses to start. Can’t find any documentation besides random GitHub issue threads. MacOS was easy to install but having issues due to a VPN that’s running already.
I use a VPN because I travel a lot. I also use my MacBook to SSH into my servers or access remote file storage. My previous network configuration was connecting via wireguard to my network. I was able to do this while maintaining an always on VPN with the mullvad app. With Nebula that VPN seems to muck things up.
I’m also curious if anybody has had experience setting up a dual config for Nextcloud. Essentially accessing a Nextcloud server from nebula with a trusted device while still allowing public access for things list public shared links.
@brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml do you mind sharing why nebula and not say WireGuard?
My network is currently setup with wireguard. I have a VPS operating as a hub within a hub and spoke (or is it hub and wheel?) configuration. This has worked great with the exception that all traffic passes through the VPS. The benefit of a mesh network is that I can directly connect clients and data does not have to flow through an intermediary VPS.
@brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml BTW it would be great if you can share your experience in the future!
I finally had the time to test moving my wireguard setup to a nebula mesh. It’s fairly simple to configure although not well supported on fringe devices. The limiting factor for me which really stops me in my tracks is that the most common devices I anticipated connecting from have a limit of 1 VPN connection at a time. So for example, I have to choose between connecting to my nebula network and having the rest of my traffic snooped on by my ISP or having my VPN on and not getting security camera notifications over my nebula network. This makes the whole setup basically useless for my uses. Very frustrating tbh but that’s not the mesh network or Nebula’s fault. I can still foresee it being helpful for connecting my backup server directly to clients so the bandwidth isn’t relayed through the central server.
I’ve been looking at i2p for this kind of thing. Its p2p and you can setup hidden services that are invisible unless you have the key. It can be configured with zero hops for low latency at the cost of privacy and security
@brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml nebula provides that for free, ala Tailscale? I have a mesh with WireGuard but it is true it doesn’t come for free