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zerotier
ZeroTierOne
C++2013–2026
zerotier / ZeroTierOne

ZeroTierOne

A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth

Systems & InfrastructureSecurity & PrivacyNetworking
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
33Distinct people
50Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
17.3KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year50 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-07-05 14:07:45 UTC to 2026-02-25 15:40:18 UTC.

02468102013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 0 submissions, 10 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 1 submissions, 9 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC10010
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1019
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
ZeroTier - Global Area Networking Quick Links ZeroTier Documentation - Start here for downloads, installation, and usage How to build - Build instructions and platform requirements Corporate Site Downloads Service API Reference Network Controller Commercial Support License Information About ZeroTier is a smart programmable Ethernet switch for planet Earth. It allows all networked devices, VMs, containers, and applications to communicate as if they all reside in the same physical data center or cloud region. This is accomplished by combining a cryptographically addressed and secure peer-to-peer network (termed VL1) with an Ethernet emulation layer somewhat similar to VXLAN (termed VL2). Our VL2 Ethernet virtualization layer includes advanced enterprise SDN features like fine grained access control rules for network micro-segmentation and security monitoring. All ZeroTier traffic is encrypted end-to-end using secret keys that only you control. Most traffic flows peer-to-peer, though we offer free (but slow) relaying for users who cannot establish peer-to-peer connections. Apps for Android and iOS are available for free in the Google Play and Apple app stores. For repository layout, build instructions, platform requirements, and information about running ZeroTier, see build.md. License See LICENSE-MPL.txt for all code in node/, osdep/. service/, and everywhere else except ext/ and nonfree/. See nonfree/LICENSE.md for all non-free ("source available") portions of this repository. Code in ext/ is external code included for build convenience or backward compatibility and retains its original license.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

10 sources
api·Nov 4, 2014
Another one for your list: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne Docker integration by a third party user: https://github.com/davide/docker-zerotier ZeroTier isn't Docker-specific, but people are using it there. (Disclosure: I wrote it.) No DNS-like component (yet), though it's possible to use mDNS/Avahi or other existing methods. Seems like DNS+Docker wants an orthogonal solution, maybe something built into Docker itself or otherwise transport-agnostic. I can imagine deployments with multiple different kinds of transports running to connect Docker containers to different sorts of things. The mDNS protocol tries to solve this problem in a more universal platform-independent way, but in my experience it isn't that reliable and doesn't scale well enough for mission-critical infrastructure use. Maybe the right thing to do would be to fix m
Read the rest
DNS by changing it over to a Kademelia DHT or something else more intelligent, scalable, and closed-form-provably correct.
In WeaveDNS – A distributed DNS service for a weave network
api·Oct 30, 2014
(I'm the author/founder.) Old one did distributed breadth-first graph exploration: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/wiki/OLD-Multicast-A... It was nifty and cool and worked pretty well for small to mid tier stuff, but biggest disadvantages in practice were: (1) Peers seem to drop the potato more often than I predicted when I simulated it, leading to a lot of truncated propagations. It also has no geo-awareness, so if your propagation graph goes through sub-Saharan Africa you're likely to see a lot of packet loss. I think my simulations implicitly assumed all high-end first-world broadband links, when reality includes the whole world and a lot of slow/crummy cellular. (2) High latency, which caused problems for people who wanted low-latency multicast for SDN-type applications (enterprise stuff). In the beginning I never considered t
Read the rest
hose applications, but they're emerging as a major user base. (3) Imposed a high CPU cost, since to prevent flooding every packet had to be cryptographically signed by its originating node. That's a lot of ECC256 signatures and verifications. (4) Mobile-unfriendly, since mobile devices really want to be able to enter long-term hibernation and not have to wake to help others propagate their multicasts. Mobile might even want to turn off most multicast, only allowing ARP and NDP or even emulating these for no multicast at all. (Currently working on iOS and Android ZT1 ports.) This also applies to tiny low power embedded devices, and I've had some interest from Internet-of-things experimenters. There's no write-up on the new algorithm yet, but it's basically sender-side replication with lazy but deterministic gathering. It gathers recipients up to the limit from supernodes and from peers. (In reality supernodes are peers-- they're merely peers designated as such.) I remember initially passing on that idea since I was afraid it would be too heavy on the sender, but observing real traffic flows shows that in aggregate the multicast traffic load ends up close to the same. Sender-side replication is also inherently fair -- sender pays the price -- so you don't need such heavy signature/verification checks to ensure that somebody can't flood the network. This way it's no easier to flood with multicast than with unicast. (Obviously anyone can DDOS but that's another matter.) In the longer term I plan to add some support for merging of multicasts going to the same local network or site, but I'm not sure how yet... it's probably going to intersect with R&D work I'm doing right now on enterprise supernode federation for SDN applications and similar stuff.
In ZeroTier One 1.0.0: Better, Faster, Cheaper
api·Aug 2, 2014
It's similar to the original pre-Microsoft design in many ways, but ZT is actually less asymmetrical in that client and "server" run the same code. A supernode is just a regular node blessed as such. (And at a fixed address with a lot of bandwidth.) Supernodes are important because they permit instant on, rapid lookup, and almost instant nat traversal. They also bridge sparse multicast groups as described here. https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/wiki/Multicast-Algor... Both Skype and Spotify have backed away from p2p. In Skype's case I suspect PRISM. I don't know why in the case of Spotify. That seems like an ideal application. Since a file is not a moving target, a lot of the problems in distributed databases disappear. That's why BitTorrent magnet links van work pretty well, though I bet a determined attacker could Sybil the Kad DH
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T to death.
In Decentralization: I Want to Believe
api·Jul 15, 2014
I'm the author / creator of this. Saw this link in my web referer list and was happy... I submitted it to HN long ago and it stayed at the infernal "1". If anyone's got any questions ask me. I'll watch this thread. One of the challenges I'm having is letting this be a p2p VPN for people who want that, but also conveying that it's a bit more than that. It's sort of like a cross between VXLAN and Skype. It also includes encryption and authentication for use over the open Internet, something VXLAN does not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VXLAN The intent is to -- for users -- make creating and joining virtual LANs as easy as doing a Skype conference call or a Google hangout. I think it's almost there, but needs a bit of work from a UI perspective. Beyond that there's the enterprise and the potential of going into the SDN market, but I'm focus
Read the rest
ing on consumer and small business for now since it's the shortest path to revenue. I'm bootstrapping for now but exploring some possible partners / co-founders, a possible KickStarter/IndieGoGo for a hardware dongle later this year, and a bit after that seeking angel/seed type funding if things look good enough to merit that step. So far I'm picking up users at an accelerating rate, which is a good sign. Everything except the web admin panel UI is open source. Here's the repo: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne
In Create Virtual LANs that Work Everywhere
api·Apr 18, 2014
You could technically set up your own completely separate network -- everything you need is there. You'd just have to fork it. It'd be kind of like forking Bitcoin to make Dogecoin or JuggaloCoin or whatever. But in this case I wouldn't see the point. You wouldn't be able to join networks on the "real" network, etc. Compared to I2P and Tor: it's neither of those. This is about network virtualization and making it easy to set up ad-hoc networks across physical boundaries. It's not a privacy tool per se, though it is end-to-end encrypted so the content of your data is hidden. My goal isn't to duplicate the work of Tor or I2P-- if you want strong anonymity, use those. (You could use ZeroTier One through Tor, though it would be slow.) There is an incomplete beginning to a technical FAQ here that answers some of these questions in more detail:
Read the rest
https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/wiki/Technical-FAQ
In SigmaVPN: Stateless OpenVPN Replacement Using NaCl Encryption Library

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