Our tinc vpn is a virtual private network service that connects a variety of computers and devices together. It lets us run services that are accessible outside the apartment without exposing those services to the wider internet.

Generally speaking, we have a set of devices that have names corresponding to atomic elements. They have ip addresses whose final octet is the atomic weight of those elements. In this way, we can predict the address of a node on the tinc network by knowing its name. My laptop, for example, is francium, which has an atomic weight of 87. Accordingly, the tinc ip of my laptop is 172.16.50.87.

Similarly, we try to give devices ip addresses on the LAN in 192.168.1.0/24 with the final octet corresponding to atomic weight. On the LAN, my francium laptop is 192.168.1.87.

For setting up tinc, it might be useful to see the instructions I made for OTS. They are in our tinc-tools repo.

I also have a tinc package in https://apt.jamesvasile.com.

At OTS, we're running tinc on Windmill and to get to an ISAW laptop in the field.