(Tailscale cofounder) I see a few comments here that using kernel wireguard would make it faster; it’s not really that simple. In fact, for a while (and we wrote a blog post about it), our optimizations made wireguard-go faster than kernel wireguard because it was better optimized. They adopted some of those improvements and now we’re on to the next order of magnitude together.
For really high bandwidth cases, things like DPDK are the long term best choice and are primarily userspace, for good reasons. Kernel mode is not the pure benefit it once was (if it ever was).
Separately, wireguard itself has a problem that the crypto suite it uses is not supported by hardware accelerators. So if we want to get into the hundreds of gigabits range, we will possibly need to switch packet formats entirely. (But, wireguard also needs to update to support post-quantum so maybe they’ll fix both problems at the same time and we can join in.)
Wireguard with PQ won't be Wireguard, anymore. It'll just be a rehash of IKE+IPsec. What made Wireguard better was the very simple handshake and minimal state, but no PQ algorithms can support that simplicity because the keys are too large and/or not as simple to use as ECC.
Might as well switch to IPsec. Everything is already in place, including hardware acceleration. But most people won't, and we'll live in a world with duck-tape hacks built around a compromised Wireguard-ish layer.
(Tailscale cofounder) I’m a little more optimistic; wireguard was always going to need a v2 eventually, that’s just the nature of cryptography. It’ll always be simpler than IPsec as long as it avoids live negotiation (you need to specify your suite up front for each node you talk to; v1 and v2 are the only suites) and continues to go over UDP instead of IPsec’s “it’s a different transport protocol!” madness.
Things like Google’s PSP already achieve that while still being hardware acceleratable: <a href="https://github.com/google/psp" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/psp
Post-quantum negotiation will kinda suck but you don’t have to sacrifice everything.
Considering how core Wireguard is to the whole Tailscale value proposition, are they funding the future of that V2 roadmap on the open source side? If the answer is "no", and because the security world isn't going to stay put (particularly with AI math advancements happening lately are accelerating medium term risk), then one has to assume Tailscale is working on it's own in-house "V2" equivalent protocol for post-quantum support to enable that vision? I doubt you're doing nothing.
apenwarr · · focus · HN ↗
For really high bandwidth cases, things like DPDK are the long term best choice and are primarily userspace, for good reasons. Kernel mode is not the pure benefit it once was (if it ever was).
Separately, wireguard itself has a problem that the crypto suite it uses is not supported by hardware accelerators. So if we want to get into the hundreds of gigabits range, we will possibly need to switch packet formats entirely. (But, wireguard also needs to update to support post-quantum so maybe they’ll fix both problems at the same time and we can join in.)
wahern · · focus · HN ↗
Might as well switch to IPsec. Everything is already in place, including hardware acceleration. But most people won't, and we'll live in a world with duck-tape hacks built around a compromised Wireguard-ish layer.
apenwarr · · focus · HN ↗
Things like Google’s PSP already achieve that while still being hardware acceleratable: <a href="https://github.com/google/psp" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/psp
Post-quantum negotiation will kinda suck but you don’t have to sacrifice everything.
Fordec · · focus · HN ↗
apenwarr · · focus · HN ↗