Don Bosco Philippines South Province

For several months now I have been working with Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) for use in our Salesian settings. The target use is to link up all the internet-connected Salesian houses in the Philippine South to facilitate communication and share resources. It led me to a foray into cryptography and more advanced networking technologies.

I was happy when I learned about and implemented WireGuard. Previously, I was afraid of learning VPNs because of the steep learning curve. I was wary of OpenVPN because of its configuration complexity. WireGuard gave the promise of lightweight security tunnels and simpler configuration. I found the right technology and I just had to make it work for me. So I thought.

A few days ago, I learned that a new technology stack has been built on top of WireGuard. I researched about it and was amazed at how it can expand the “hub and spoke” topology of WireGuard into a mesh. It was too bad that no package came up for it in the firewall that we use. So I thought.

Then, bang! It seems Divine Providence work on the internet too. Angelic developers ported Tailscale for our firewall. Hurray for Open Source technologies! I immediately reconfigured my VPN mesh.

I was very much relieved that the clutter of security policies and rules that need to be put up have all been demolished. The customizations and static routing I built up for so many sleepless nights were gone and I am all the happier. I am facing an elegant and simple configuration page today. Tailscale saved me from complex routing protocols.

This made me realize how fast the tech world is evolving. The newest technology you meet today can easily be surpassed in a matter of days. An ever-changing tech landscape presents its own challenges. One has to keep abreast of latest developments and have the flexibility to adjust to new realities. The most difficult part however is the challenge of adapting human behavior to new tools. Technology shapes behavior after all.

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