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Comment by Cyphus | Hacker News Reader

Is your dad running Windows? Windows firewall is known to block icmp traffic, a problem that neither Tailscale nor any other p2p VPN can solve.

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Maybe, but even ICMP pings? He also couldn't ping my systems, it seemed really broken.

Ping uses ICMP. Windows blocks ICMP by default, so yes `ping <windows-host>` doesn't work by default. Is your system your father was trying to ping a Windows system as well?

The other thing to check is if he was running another VPN on his machine at the same time. Running multiple VPNs at the same time (both Windows and Linux) requires extra fiddling to map the routing correctly to prevent their rules from overlapping/breaking each. https://tailscale.com/kb/1105/other-vpns

No other VPN, but my windows machine firewall is on and it pings fine.

Anyway, tailscale still has more to go. Inviting someone to your tailnet doesn't seem to be the same as adding a machine yourself.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. On a given tailnet, users can only reach their own machines. Each machine that joins the network has an “owner” shown under the machine name in the admin portal. By default users can only reach their own machines, not everyone’s else’s. As the network admin you can manage that through the ACLs tab.

And this is why tailscale isn't solving the fundamental issues of connectivity. Thanks and cheers eddythompson80.

What is the alternative, here? Letting all machines on a tailnet talk sounds like a security issue. Maybe a better onboarding flow that prompts you to set ACLs when inviting a new user?

It seems you're assuming the firewall or my machine configuration was the issue rather than a tailscale "sharing" feature issue.

I am, among other things, a network engineer, and previously I shared my tailnet with my brother's windows machine by logging him into my account directly, and it worked flawlessly.

I want TS to win, but they've got product and engineering work to do if they're serious.

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