Talk:TUN/TAP

Who is doing development for windows TUN/TAP drivers?

Is there a reference for coLinux being used as a VPN (i.e. it implements functionality similar to OpenVPN)? I don't know anything about it, but the coLinux article does not mention "VPN," and http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acolinux.org+vpn seems to only indicate that VPNs can interfere with Windows networking. —Fleminra 19:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you're misunderstanding. coLinux uses TUN/TAP as one possible means of networking a virtualized linux machine onto a hardware network. It's not necessarily a VPN at all, though obviously OpenVPN could be run on both the windows and linux sides if you were feeling sadistic. 75.4.60.81 05:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that coLinux is not analogous to OpenVPN, VTun, etc., and properly belongs under the the sub-heading "virtual machine networking," which is where I put it, but it was moved under "virtual private networks." —Fleminra 19:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't Hamachi use TUN/TAP on Linux?


 * It does. It also uses (its own) TAP driver on Windows. Alex Pankratov 22:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What do they stand for? Why capitals?
What do TUN and TAP stand for? Who introduced the terms?

The FreeBSD man page says:

NAME tun - tunnel software network interface

If it's just short for "tunnel", shouldn't this page be called tun/tap instead? Why the capitals? --Slashme 06:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Article indicates that tun/tap drivers exist for Windows, but I can't find them on the web. Would someone who knows of them please create the appropriate external link?


 * "netvmini" sample from Windows DDK is a rudimental implementation of TAP driver. OpenVPN includes more elaborate implementation called "tapwin32". Regarding the original question - I don't know why TUN and TAP are capitalized, but TUN clearly comes from TUNnel and I suspect that TAP refers to water tap faucet. Alex Pankratov 22:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * on http://wiki.openvpn.eu/index.php/Vergleich_TUN/TAP (german only) is a nice comparison of the features of both — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.54.41.45 (talk) 21:28, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarification required
''Packets sent by an operating system via a TUN/TAP device are delivered to a user-space program that attaches itself to the device. A user-space program may also pass packets into a TUN/TAP device. In this case TUN/TAP device delivers (or injects) these packets to the operating system network stack thus emulating their reception from an external source.''

I think this para needs refining to make the point of the article but I'm not sufficiently confident to do it myself. I think that what's really meant is:

''Packets routed by an operating system to a TAP device are delivered to a user-space program that attaches itself to the corresponding TUN device. A user-space program may also pass packets to a TUN device in which case the TUN/TAP subsystem delivers (or "injects") them into the operating system network stack as though they had come from the corresponding TAP device.''

MarkMLl (talk) 20:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know for sure, but it's never been my understanding that there is no one-to-one correspondence between TAP devices and TUN devices. I.e., creating a TUN device on a system does not necessarily create a corresponding TAP device.  Anyway, if you do change it, it would be a good idea to cite some reference for the change. —Fleminra (talk) 22:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are TAP and TUN mutually exclusive?
In the TomatoVPN firmware for many routers, under the Interface Type in the VPN setting, you have to chose either TAP or TUN. Does this mean you have to chose one or the other? Can someone who knows the answer include this info in this wiki? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.78.50 (talk) 05:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I know it's a decade-old question. So the answer is probably more for future readers with the same question rather than the original poster. I added a diagram and text which explain why TUN and TAP are mutually exclusive - they operate similar functions on different layers of the network stack. TAP is at Layer 2 and carries ethernet frames with any protocols they contain. TUN is at Layer 3 and carries IP packets subject to IP routing at either or both ends. Ikluft (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

TUN/TAP maintainer, contribs
I see this article is marked as needing improvement. As FOSS middleware, there isn't that much 'Wikipedia-reliable' third-party documentation available, but tun/tap is most certainly notable (as is, for example, openSSL, which is FOSS middleware which is in pretty much every network crypto product -- both it and tun/tap are used in both l2 and l3 reference implementations of openVPN). Most of the third party sources are stackexchange-type ones, sysadmins trying to do x with tun/tap. Are contributors or the maintainer of the reference tun/tap driver reliable? 184.75.211.244 (talk) 19:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)