[SCION] Routing in and out of SCION, and commercial providers of VPN services

Chris Adams chris at thegreenwebfoundation.org
Fri Jan 29 11:15:58 CET 2021


Hi there, 

I’m trying get a better understanding of how SCION works, and where the technology might fit into common tools I might already use.

For example, after reading over the docs, I get the idea I might be able to use this like I use a VPN at present, where from my machine my traffic heads to to  "up" into SCION, the same way I might pay to use something like Tailscale.

From there I might assume that my packets would be sent along the SCION internet, and my destination is ‘inside' the SCION network, all is well.

What about if I want to connect to another host, on the regular internet, but I want as much of it to go through SCION as possible?

I’ve been looking through the docs and presentations, and I think I understand how the approach for routing packets works differently within SCION (with the route preferences stored in the header rather than relying on each hop), but I don't think I understand what happens once you have reached the last hop.

Are the original packets with the destination encapsulated at the point that the data packet joins SCION via the attachment point?

If that's the case, I assume once you’ve reached the hop ‘closest’ to the destination, responsibility would go back to the ‘regular' internet at that point, with BGP and routing tables in use again, but I’m struggling to find the appropriate part of the docs or the book that explains this. 

Can a kind soul point me towards this part?

Commercial providers of VPNs or connectivity 

Also, where would I find commercial providers of some kind off VPN or networking service for this?



Chris




More information about the SCION mailing list