The Ubiquiti Diaries: A Site-to-Site VPN Story

Ubiquiti Networks is a popular provider of networking related equipment in the SMB/SMB space. Their gear is also very popular with prosumers thanks to the combination of ease of use and the ability to customize it to specific needs. I’ve been running a Ubiquiti UniFi installation at home for the past five years and recently had the opportunity to create a new deployment in another country. There were two main reasons for choosing Ubiquiti for the new site – a single management plane for both sites and the ability to easily create a site-to-site VPN.

The new installation went fairly smoothly and the site-to-site VPN was stable until the ISP at the remote site moved the gateway from a public-facing WAN IP to one behind a carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT). . This led to a deeper investigation of different options available for site-to-site VPNs with Ubiquiti’s equipment for different scenarios. In the process I eventually came across a variety of issues worth documenting to help people who might encounter them in their own installations. This article provides an account of my journey down the rabbit hole – including a step-by-step guide detailing my attempts to avoid the various pitfalls.

ZeroTier One runs over a peer-to-peer network, which means that enabling devices to communicate directly (at scale and with acceptable performance) is central to its operation.

Does ZeroTier forward all traffic?

Typically, ZeroTier virtual networks run alongside your regular internet connection and other networks. If you want to route all your internet traffic through ZeroTier, you need to configure it for default route override, also known as “full tunnel”. mode and set up a router/gateway in your virtual network.

Is ZeroTier always active? These are normal ZeroTier nodes, but they are always powered on and have static (physical) IP addresses. These static IPs can be global internet IPs or physical intranet IPs that are only reachable internally. In the latter case, your moon’s roots don’t work outside of your office, but that doesn’t matter.

Can you trust ZeroTier?

Yes, ZeroTier is safe. All ZeroTier traffic is end-to-end encrypted. Read more about how ZeroTier uses cryptography.

How does ZeroTier work?

ZeroTier is an encrypted virtual network backbone that allows multiple machines to communicate as if they were on a single network. The code is fully open source and you can host the controller yourself or use the ZeroTierOne service with free or paid plans.

Does ZeroTier encrypt traffic?

All ZeroTier traffic is end-to-end encrypted with secret keys only you control. Most traffic flows peer-to-peer, although we offer free (but slow) forwarding for users who cannot establish peer-to-peer connections.

How is Zero Trust different from VPN?

While VPNs have historically had a place in most network security plans, Zero Trust is a relatively new concept that aims to close the security gaps that traditional security approaches overlook. An SDP is a network architecture that implements Zero Trust principles to provide more secure remote access than VPNs.

What is zero trust network access? Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is an IT security solution that provides secure remote access to an organization’s applications, data and services based on well-defined access control policies.

Is VPN or Zero Trust best for remote work security?

While VPNs also use multi-factor authentication, the Zero Trust approach is designed to contain hackers so they can’t move up the network. Even if they gain access, the attack surface is reduced in contrast to the traditional VPN.

What is Mcafee ZTNA?

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) enforces granular, adaptive, and context-aware policies to deliver secure and seamless Zero Trust access to private applications hosted in clouds and enterprise data centers, from any remote location and device.

Can ZeroTier be hacked?

An attacker could hijack arbitrary Zerotier peer addresses by overwriting public keys stored on Zerotier root servers. This could be used to inject unauthorized packets into private Zerotier networks under certain circumstances.

Can you trust ZeroTier? Yes, ZeroTier is safe. All ZeroTier traffic is end-to-end encrypted. Read more about how ZeroTier uses cryptography.

Can ZeroTier be used as a VPN?

One of the easiest VPN services to configure, ZeroTier is completely free for up to 100 devices. The entire process should only take a few minutes from start to finish.

Is ZeroTier encrypted?

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific task (such as billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information.

Is ZeroTier end-to-end encrypted?

ZeroTier aims to be a “zero trust” networking solution. Packets are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by unauthorized persons. Each peer on VL1 has a globally unique 40-bit ZeroTier address, but unlike IP addresses, these are opaque cryptographic identifiers that do not encode routing information.

ZeroTier is a mesh VPN solution. Mesh VPNs enable direct connectivity between any two endpoints in the mesh without having to go through a concentrator in a data center.