Reverse proxy/VPN with client-side wasm client

[dpc]

Problem:

I have an http service that I'd like to expose to be available no matter what. This can some control panel on some raspberry pi, etc.

How I would normally approach it:

Set up tailscale, forward ssh port, vpn, ngrok, localtunnel

Tailscale, ssh, vpn require heavier setup, and might require some direct network connectivity between server and client.

Ngrok and localtunnel are "easier" and do not require direct connectivity, but need an intermediate host.

How this could be done better with Iroh:

I'm thinking basically ngrok but with Iroh, which would be very similar to dumbpipe.

One would start a dumbpipe listen like connector on the server side (this can be completely automated) and point it the endpoint I'd like to expose:

iroh-vpn listen --dst localhost:1234

This would either generate a random Iroh endpoint and secret and print it on stderr, or would use a seeded iroh secret to make the endpoint deterministic. Then instead of (like in ngrok) getting a web page, then other side connect with:

iroh-vpn connect :1234 <ticket>

and get port fowarding on a local port :1234. p2p, e2e encrypted, trustless.

My dream would be, now that Iroh runs in the browser, if the forwarded application is http-based (which often is the case), to have WASM client side application, that would take care of acting as an web proxy.

So the user would go to:

https://iroh-vpn.github.io/#<ticket>

and "magically" got the web interface of the service displayed right there, no need to start any client side things.

The "magically" here is the tricky part though. I think it would need to work just like web proxies do and rewrite http responses, substituting urls.

Edit:

Actually, seems like dumbpipe can already work like this, maybe except deterministic endpoint id and secret. It seems like it already handles multiple connections just fine.

So the missing bits would be:

• deterministic endpoint id / secret
• wasm web client