Protect Your Relays

iroh.computer

49 points·surprisetalk··15 comments

Lol i expected a text about protecting relays from mechanical or electric problems. You know those real mechanical relays we used to build computers of some years ago

Same, having worked on firmware that controlled relays (and NAND chips) and managed to burn them both out surprisingly quickly due to software bugs :p

I've got an electrical garage door opener, came with the house. We've been here 16 years and the relay has always been sticky: I have to bash the unit with a broom for it to work. One day I'll replace that damn relay.

> You know those real mechanical relays we used to build computers of some years ago

Or found in just about every home appliance where mains voltage is switched by a CPU.

> A leaked token enables connections, but not impersonations. The token is addressed to one specific endpoint's public key

So now the problem is moved to "how do you decide who to issue tokens to?", which every project must solve individually. It might sound like I'm being dismissive here but I think that's exactly the right approach.

The thing that surprised me running relays for robot fleets: relay was not the fallback, it was the common case. Hole punching fails a lot behind enterprise NAT.

I suppose many apps need to phone home, but I wonder about the loss of control if a lot of apps and devices start embedding this.

Tailscale seems better for controlling my own network?

Does this mean the official relay now requires an account to use?

No, the public relays are free forever, they are just rate limited. That hasn’t changed!

bro just use a flyback diode

Reply on news.ycombinator.com