DeltaLaboratory
Notes on networking, systems, and performance.
Tailscale Performance Overhead Analysis
TL;DR On 1 Gbps Ethernet: throughput overhead ~5.4% (941 → 890 Mbit/s). Added latency +0.259 ms (0.369 → 0.628 ms), a 70% relative rise but negligible absolute impact for most workloads. Overview Goal: quantify bandwidth and latency overhead when routing traffic through Tailscale versus a direct (unencrypted LAN) path. Test Environment Identical hardware / software on both endpoints: OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64 Kernel: Linux 6.12.41+deb13-amd64 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (12 threads) @ 4.21 GHz Memory: 62.73 GiB Link: 1 Gbps wired Ethernet Test duration: 60 s (bandwidth), 15 probes (latency) Methodology Bandwidth Tool: iperf3 (TCP, 1 MiB buffers, 60 s). Command: ...