Weron a VPN based on the WebRTC protocol

Few days ago news broke that the first version of Weron VPN was released, which is a project that aims to allow the creation of overlapping networks that combine geographically dispersed hosts in a virtual network, whose nodes interact directly with each other (P2P).

It is highlighted that within the main characteristics of Weron are the one that can be used to create unique networks of trust that connect local hosts with systems running in cloud environments. The low overhead of using WebRTC on low latency networks also makes it possible to create Weron-based secure home networks to protect traffic between hosts within local networks.

Another key feature of this project is that an API is provided for developers to create their own distributed applications with features such as automatic connection resumption and establishing multiple communication channels at the same time.

In addition to this, it is also highlighted that virtual IP networking is supported (layer 3) and Ethernet networks (layer 2).

As for the part of the key difference with other similar projects such as Tailscale, WireGuard and ZeroTier, it is the use of the WebRTC protocol for the interaction of nodes in a virtual network.

The main advantage that the project presumes is that by using WebRTC as transport, the resistance to blocking VPN traffic is greater, since this protocol is actively used in popular video and audio conferencing programs such as Zoom.

It is worth mentioning that WebRTC also stands out because it provides out-of-the-box tools to access hosts running behind NAT and bypass corporate firewalls using the STUN and TURN protocols. As such, the Weron project is notable for providing all the tools for creating simple, fast, and secure WebRTC-based overlay networks.

Of the other characteristics that stand out from this project, the following are mentioned:

  • Allows to create access nodes behind NAT: Because weron uses WebRTC to establish connections between nodes, you can easily traverse corporate firewalls and NAT using STUN, or even use a TURN server to tunnel traffic. This can be very useful, for example, to SSH into your home lab without forwarding any ports on your router.
  • Offers the power to secure the home networka: Due to the relatively low overhead of WebRTC on low latency networks, weron can be used to secure traffic between nodes on a LAN without significantly affecting performance.
  • Allows you to join local nodes in a cloud network- If you run, for example, a Kubernetes cluster with cloud instance-based nodes but also want to join your local nodes together, you can use weron to create a reliable network.
  • circumvent censorship– The underlying WebRTC suite, on which popular video conferencing tools like Zoom, Teams, and Meet are based, is difficult to block at the network level, making it a valuable addition to your toolbox for circumventing state censorship or corporate.
  • Write your own point-to-point protocols: Simple API makes it easy to write distributed applications with automatic reconnections, multiple data channels, etc.

Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about the about the project, you should know that the code of the project is written in Go and is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. Ready builds are prepared for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, macOS, and Windows.

How to install Weron on Linux?

For those who are interested in being able to install Weron on their systems, they can do it in a super simple way and that can be done from almost any current Linux distribution.

To be able to carry out the installation, simply open a terminal and in it we are going to type the following commands:

curl -L -o /tmp/weron "https://github.com/pojntfx/weron/releases/latest/download/weron.linux-$(uname -m)" sudo install /tmp/weron /usr/local/ bin sudo setcap cap_net_admin+ep /usr/local/bin/weron

To learn more about the use of Weron, you can consult the following link.


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  1.   juanfran said

    Webrtc is a leak, your ip is filtered and much more, the best is a good paid vpn, which precisely blocks webrtc and is based on wireguard, which is the best protocol today.