I don’t know who usually reads these but I will try to write these blog posts going forward hopefully in a way that even your grandma may be able to understand the general idea of what the technology does.

The problem

Accessing a computer whether you’re just in another room using another computer or if you’re away from home is a bit of a puzzle especially if you want to follow best security practices.

1. Port Forwarding: You have to “open a window” on your router to let external traffic reach your computer.
2. SSH Setup: Then configure public/private keys for authentication because allowing typed password can be more vulnerable.
3. Security Measures: Disable password logins, set up tools like fail2ban to block suspicious IP addresses, and so on.

It’s a lot, and even if you follow these steps things can still go wrong. This process is not only time-consuming but also intimidating for most people.

The solution: Tailscale

Enter Tailscale, this amazing cross platform (windows, mac, linux computer system) that automates all of this complexity for you. Here’s how it works:

• Install the Tailscale client on your computer, and you’re done.
• No port forwarding, no key setup, no security headaches—Tailscale handles it all behind the scenes.
• Secure by design: Tailscale uses end-to-end encryption and automatically blocks unauthorized access.

Suddenly, accessing your computer from anywhere becomes as simple as clicking a button.

Power unleashed! Now what…?

Now you may wonder what’s the benefit of accessing your computer from anywhere in the world? Well I’m glad you’re wondering! You can now basically have your very own cloud network by running programs on your computer just like all these other big tech companies!

Servers everywhere!

I’ll have a more in depth write up of all the services I have running on up coming blog posts.

For now, here are some examples of what I run on my network

1. Immich
   • A photo management app that works like Apple’s iCloud. I can access, organize, and back up my photos from anywhere using a web browser or the iOS app. It even supports facial recognition and object detection.
2. OpenAI WebUI + Ollama
   • A customizable AI playground that runs locally on my computer. I can train and test AI models using prompts, configure hardware usage, and even build my own AI agent—all without relying on cloud providers.
3. Jellyfin
   • A media server like Plex, but open-source. I stream my movies, music, and TV shows to my phone, tablet, or smart TV using a web interface or apps.

This just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can do with Tailscale and I hope you’ll give it a try!