Freelan

"Freelan is a free, open-source, multi-platform, peer-to-peer VPN software that abstracts a LAN over the Internet. It works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Whether you want to connect the computers of your family, play an old LAN-only game with your friends, or give a privileged access to your private network to your collaborators, freelan will do the job perfectly.

Freelan can, of course, be configured to act according to the usual client-server pattern, like any other VPN software.


In this configuration, one or several clients connect to the server, which may or may not allow clients to communicate with one another. The server does not necessarily need to be part of the network and can even act as a simple relay.

The client-server pattern is nice, but it is also a bit fragile. What happens to your connectivity if the server falls for some reason ?


For more robust networks, freelan can be configured as a peer-to-peer network, where each node can connect directly to all the others. This configuration also brings better performances since traffic between two nodes doesn't need to go through a third node anymore.

What if you would like to mix the benefits of both the client-server and peer-to-peer patterns ?

Freelan actually allows for all kinds of connectivity graphs. Some hosts can be connected to some others, but not all of them. You are free to pick the topology you desire, even an hybrid one."

https://www.freelan.org/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025792

https://github.com/freelan-developers/freelan

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6466574