I wish there was a tailscale-like equivalent without connectivity encryption, for devices which encrypt at the application layer (like almost the entire internet does). We don't always need the lower layers to be encrypted, this is especially computationally expensive for low power devices (think IoT stuff running a tailscale like tunnel).
GRE tunnels exist and I actually use them extensively, but UDP hole punching is not handled so hub-and-spoke architecture is needed for them, no peer to peer meshes with GRE (ip fou).
Are there equivalent libraries out there which do UDP hole punching and unencrypted GRE tunnels following an encrypted handshake to confirm identity?
Yes, the established standard here is known collectively as Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) [1] which WebRTC relies on -- there are a few good libraries out there that implement it and/or various elements of it [2] [3].
libp2p [4] may be what you're after if you want something geared more towards general purpose connectivity.
FWIW, libp2p also enforces transport encryption, quote:
Encryption is an important part of communicating on the libp2p network. Every connection must be encrypted to help ensure security for everyone. As such, Connection Encryption (Crypto) is a required component of libp2p.
It's written in Python. Though its not based on using the default interface like most networking code. I wanted the possibility to be able to run services across whatever interfaces you like. Allowing for much more diverse and useful things to be built. Its mostly based on standard library modules. I hate C extension crap as it always breaks packages cross-platform.
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I wish there was a tailscale-like equivalent without connectivity encryption, for devices which encrypt at the application layer (like almost the entire internet does). We don't always need the lower layers to be encrypted, this is especially computationally expensive for low power devices (think IoT stuff running a tailscale like tunnel).
GRE tunnels exist and I actually use them extensively, but UDP hole punching is not handled so hub-and-spoke architecture is needed for them, no peer to peer meshes with GRE (ip fou).
Are there equivalent libraries out there which do UDP hole punching and unencrypted GRE tunnels following an encrypted handshake to confirm identity?
Yes, the established standard here is known collectively as Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) [1] which WebRTC relies on -- there are a few good libraries out there that implement it and/or various elements of it [2] [3].
libp2p [4] may be what you're after if you want something geared more towards general purpose connectivity.
[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8445
[2] https://github.com/pion/webrtc
[3] https://github.com/algesten/str0m
[4] https://libp2p.io
Thank you for the resources! I will study them.
FWIW, libp2p also enforces transport encryption, quote:
It's not UDP but I do TCP hole punching here: https://github.com/robertsdotpm/p2pd and every other major method of NAT traversal.
It's written in Python. Though its not based on using the default interface like most networking code. I wanted the possibility to be able to run services across whatever interfaces you like. Allowing for much more diverse and useful things to be built. Its mostly based on standard library modules. I hate C extension crap as it always breaks packages cross-platform.
Turn, stun, ice is what does hole punching for voip, so you can reuse libraries from voip for that
You could try to bring back Teredo.