How to Build a Free, Secure Remote-Access Network with Tailscale

According to a report published by ZDNet, Ed Bott needed to reach two PCs in his home lab while traveling through three countries over nearly three weeks. The machines host virtual machines testing Windows 11 Insider builds and manage other business tasks, but were locked behind his home router and inaccessible from the road. Rather than paying for a commercial VPN or using a consumer remote-desktop service such as Chrome Remote Desktop or TeamViewer, Bott turned to Tailscale, a free service that creates a secure private network across all his devices.

Tailscale works differently from conventional VPN services. Traditional hub-and-spoke VPNs route encrypted traffic through a central server, which can be expensive and add latency. Tailscale instead builds a peer-to-peer mesh network, where devices authenticate using an identity provider such as GitHub, Microsoft Entra ID, Google, Apple, or a passkey manager, and then communicate directly over encrypted WireGuard tunnels. The service acts only as a directory to introduce devices and then steps back from the data path, so even when a direct connection cannot be established, it relays traffic without being able to decrypt it, according to the report.

Security details in the report note that connections are encrypted end-to-end with keys that never leave the device, and Tailscale's servers do not receive credentials or see traffic content. Bott said his router blocks Remote Desktop traffic on TCP port 3389, but that traffic works through the secure tunnel without needing to manage port numbers, NAT traversal, or firewall configurations. The free version of Tailscale supports up to six users and an unlimited number of devices, which the company says will be free forever.

Bott reported that while away, he clicked a shortcut in Microsoft's Windows App and connected to one of his office virtual machines without difficulty, even on a slow airplane connection or mobile roaming.