Tailscale has transformed the way I manage and access my homelab, providing seamless, secure connectivity between all my devices—wherever I am. In my previous post, “How Tailscale Transformed Secure Access to My Homelab”, I shared how Tailscale has become an essential part of my daily workflow, enabling remote access to servers, VMs, and services without exposing anything to the public internet. Today, I want to highlight another standout feature: Taildrop. What is Taildrop? Taildrop is a built-in feature of Tailscale that allows you to securely send files between any devices connected to your Tailnet. Taildrop transfers files over encrypted peer-to-peer connections, using the fastest available path. This makes it a great solution for sending sensitive or large files without third-party servers in the middle.

Connecting to services in a homelab can be a headache, especially when you want strong security without the hassle of port forwarding, firewall rules, or wrestling with certificates. Last year, I discovered Tailscale and introduced it to my homelab. Tailscale has become my solution for secure, reliable, and zero-fuss access to certain services in my homelab—which I do not want to expose via the public internet. In this post, I’ll walk through what makes Tailscale so effective, how to set it up, and the best practices I’ve picked up along the way.

In my work life, I use a company-issued Windows 11 laptop. I genuinely enjoy working across all the major operating systems, from Linux and macOS to Windows itself—I’ve found that Windows has evolved in some really interesting ways, especially when it comes to Linux and Open Source software. One of the very first things I do when setting up a new Windows system is make sure the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) is installed and configured just the way I like it. I’ve been using WSL on a daily basis for years, and it’s become an essential part of my workflow, allowing me to run all the Linux tools I need in a familiar, integrated environment. Plus, it’s improved massively since I first tried it out on Windows 10 back in 2017.

What is an API? APIs, short for Application Programming Interfaces, are tools that allow software applications to communicate with each other. They define a set of rules and protocols that enable developers to access features or data from another service without needing to understand or modify the underlying code. Think of them as messengers that deliver your request to another service and return the response back to you.

Back in 2020 I finally set aside time to learn about containerisation. Docker had been on my radar for a while, but I kept putting it off, convinced it was strictly developer territory. Determined to challenge that belief, I spun up a modest Virtual Private Server (VPS) with Contabo and embarked on a learn‑by‑doing journey, self‑hosting a handful of services. The concepts felt tricky at first, but I persevered, and as I grew comfortable with the Docker CLI, the hype began to make sense.