Tailcat – Like netcat, but over Tailscale’s data plane
Tailcat is a new open-source tool that leverages Tailscale's data plane to provide encrypted, peer-to-peer networking without requiring a central control plane. It functions similarly to netcat, allowing users to establish secure connections using connection tokens and DERP relays.
Why it matters
It provides a lightweight, decentralized method for secure file and data transfer, increasing accessibility to robust networking tools for developers.
"Tailscale without Tailscale, by Tailscale"
Tailcat is a remix of Tailscale open source pieces to act like netcat , but over Tailscale's data plane, without Tailscale's control plane. Tailscale's data plane ( magicsock , internally) gives you point-to-point WireGuard®-encrypted tunnels between two machines with DERP as the NAT-hole-punching communication side channel and the ultimate relay-of-last-resort if NAT traversal fails. Instead of using the Tailscale control plane, all tailcat connection metadata is exchanged out of band, however you want.
The tailcat CLI (in cmd/tailcat ) is built on the tailcat Go library (importable as github.com/tailscale/tailcat ).
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