What’s the exit node and what do I use it for?
So I’m going to go a little ELY5 here, just because the question makes me suspect you might need some foundation.
All network traffic from your computer must be “routed” to its destination. The computer has a “default route” that typically tells your computer to send traffic out through your ISP modem. But it’s possible to configure the computer instead to take a different path to reach certain remote addresses, while still sending the rest of the traffic over the default route.
Okay, so that said, Tailscale’s “tailnet” builds you a virtual local network so that all the computers on the tailnet can talk to one another. But beyond creating a virtual LAN, there are two important VPN applications you will see in the wild:
- Remote access to a local network: in this case, you have a local network, say in your office, and you want to access machines on that local network from a remote machine, like your home computer. In this case you connect to a VPN server that has access to your office network, and your routing gets updated so that traffic bound for any address on your office network gets routed through the VPN server. Your regular Internet traffic still gets sent through your default ISP route.
- Sometimes you want all your traffic to be routed through a separate location. For instance, if you are traveling internationally sometimes it is necessary to make your Internet presence appear to still be inside your home country. For this you might connect to a public VPN service and select a server in your home country. When you do the VPN software will update your default route so that all traffic gets sent to the VPN server, and thus all your traffic will appear to be coming from the country you selected.
Tailscale provides for both of these use cases via two routing control features: the “subnet router” and the “exit node.”
A subnet router handles the first case: A tailscale node on your office network advertises a subnet for the office network’s addresses, and when your home computer joins the tailnet it can subscribe to the routes and thus know to route all your office traffic through the subnet router node. All of your non-office traffic will still go out over your regular ISP connection like normal.
The exit node handles the second use case: You can have a node on the tailnet running inside your home country and advertising itself as an exit node, and then the computer you have with you while traveling can be set to use that exit node. Like with the third-party VPN service, this will replace the default route so that all of your traffic is routed through that exit node, making it appear to the Internet as if you are still in your home country.
This is well documented.
What if I cannot have Tailscale installed on my remote machine, but I still want it to look like it is coming from my home network? How to set up the exit node in this case?
If u use it to connect to an exit node on mullvad why go through that trouble as opposed to just using mullvad vpn
Thank you for the layman’s explanation.
Do these interact and how? Will the traffic go through the exit node first and then through the subnet router? Or is it just one or the other?
Use the gl axt1800 router put tailscale on that and have your laptop connect to the router and have an exit node connected to your home modem
The subnet route method would be the way to go. The Tailscale dood even did a video showcasing the ability to use your Apple TV as the subnet router.
Would you be able to help me on this? https://www.reddit.com/r/Tailscale/comments/1bj4b8h/subnet_router_does_not_route_all_traffic/
TLDR - I want to make my own gl axt1800
I think you mean exit node route. They want their traffic to appear as though it’s coming from home.