No I don't work for them. This is just an endorsement, and not a solicitation. It's just that it has revolutionized how I access all my disparate equipment around the globe. If you are looking for a free and easy way to connect to your equipment over the internet, and are not interested in learning complex VPN setups, read on...

Tailscale is a mesh VPN. That means that it's basically a private LAN layer that you install on all your devices. These devices can all talk to each other as if they are on the same physical LAN. The performance is also increased generally speaking because each device is talking directly to the other machine rather than using a single point VPN server as a gateway. Tailscale acts as a connection broker, but the data from what I understand is not going through their servers. You can even designate a device as an exit node if you want to route traffic through that host. I also think (not tried or tested) you can have a specific host act as a traditional gateway VPN to get on to that LAN and access devices behind the firewall.

The upsides are:

You can forget about IP addresses, port forwarding/NAT, openvpn and just access your gear securely and privately
you can share a "node" with another user of tailscale or give someone a user in your tailscale who can access more than a single host.
Tailscale has its own DNS built in so you can just access via names. e.g. "ssh stellarmate@stellaramate", or https://allskycamera/ from any of your devices. (this may cause issues if you host your own DNS or host file. I stopped hosting my own dns because generally this works for me since all my devices are on it.)
It installs in a one line shell command on linux. This is great because many VPN solutions are way more difficult to setup.

The main downsides are:

You are still using a third party that you don't control as a connection broker. (Although tailscale has been a great company, and provides lots of information about their practices and security protocols.)
the devices have to support the installation of the tailscale sofware. All major platforms are supported. Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, IOS etc.
On my android phone I occasionally have to turn it off and back on when switching networks (as in going from wifi at home to cellular). I think this is an issue with their Built in DNS.
In some circumstances your nodes are relayed through tailscale's relay network

For me personally it's a great solution because I can access over 30 devices that I manage/control from anywhere, and it's a direct connection to that device. I couldn't do what I do without it.

Thought Id post it here in case anyone finds it useful. Another product that is also free that works the same way is Zerotier. Works well also and is essentially the same. I found tailscale to be higher performance. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for looking and I hope stretch the rules to post this here.

Bryan.