Tinc (protocol)

tinc
Original author(s)	Guus Sliepen, Ivo Timmermans, Wessel Dankers
Developer(s)	The Tinc development team
Initial release	14 November 1998
Stable release	1.0.36 / 26 August 2019;5 years ago
Preview release	1.1pre18 / 27 June 2021;3 years ago
Repository	tinc-vpn.org/git/tinc ;
Written in	C
Platform	Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, iOS, Android
Type	VPN
License	GPL
Website	www.tinc-vpn.org

Last updated April 16, 2025

Tinc is an open-source, self-routing, mesh networking protocol and software implementation used for compressed and encrypted virtual private networks. It was started in 1998 by Guus Sliepen, Ivo Timmermans, and Wessel Dankers, and released as a GPL-licensed project.

Platforms

Tinc is available on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, iOS (jailbroken only), Android with full support for IPv6.^[4]

Future goals

The authors of Tinc have goals of providing a platform that is secure, stable, reliable, scalable, easily configurable, and flexible.^[4]

Embedded technologies

Tinc uses OpenSSL or LibreSSL as the encryption library and gives the options of compressing communications with zlib for "best compression" or LZO for "fast compression".^[4]

Projects that use tinc

Freifunk has tinc enabled in their routers as of October 2006.^[5]
OpenWrt has an installable package for tinc.
OPNsense, an open source router and firewall distribution, has a plugin for Tinc
pfSense has an installable package in the 2.3 release.
Tomato variants Shibby and FreshTomato include Tinc support.
NYC Mesh uses tinc to connect parts of the mesh over the public internet that would be otherwise out of range.^[6]

References

↑ Sliepen, Guus (26 August 2019). "Tinc version 1.0.36 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 3 September 2019.
↑ Sliepen, Guus (27 June 2021). "Tinc version 1.1pre18 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 27 June 2021.
↑ "Tinc supported platforms". 22 Aug 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
1 2 3 "Tinc main page". 4 Nov 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
↑ "Freifunk firmware 1.4 is out". The Mesh Dot Org. Archived from the original on 2007-09-04. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
↑ "Frequently asked questions". nycmesh.net. Retrieved 2021-06-21.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[tinc-announce-005471-1] Sliepen, Guus (26 August 2019). "Tinc version 1.0.36 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 3 September 2019.

[tinc-announce-005578-2] Sliepen, Guus (27 June 2021). "Tinc version 1.1pre18 released". tinc (Mailing list). Retrieved 27 June 2021.

[3] "Tinc supported platforms". 22 Aug 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2018.

[main-4] 1 2 3 "Tinc main page". 4 Nov 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2018.

[5] "Freifunk firmware 1.4 is out". The Mesh Dot Org. Archived from the original on 2007-09-04. Retrieved 2007-03-28.

[6] "Frequently asked questions". nycmesh.net. Retrieved 2021-06-21.

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