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Networking Intermediate

What is WireGuard?

A modern, lightweight VPN protocol that uses state-of-the-art cryptography and minimal code for fast, secure tunneling.

WireGuard is a VPN protocol designed for simplicity and performance. With approximately 4,000 lines of code (compared to OpenVPN's 100,000+), it has a smaller attack surface and is easier to audit. It uses Curve25519 for key exchange, ChaCha20 for encryption, Poly1305 for authentication, and BLAKE2s for hashing. WireGuard operates at the kernel level (built into Linux since 5.6) for high performance, achieving better throughput than IPsec and OpenVPN. Configuration is remarkably simple — each peer has a public/private key pair and a list of allowed IPs. It supports roaming (seamless IP changes) and establishes connections in milliseconds.

Related Terms

Network Segmentation
The practice of dividing a network into isolated segments to improve security, performance, and management.
Anycast
A network routing technique where the same IP address is announced from multiple locations, directing users to the nearest server.
IP Address
A unique numerical label assigned to each device on a computer network for identification and communication.
VLAN (Virtual LAN)
A logical grouping of network devices that creates separate broadcast domains on the same physical network infrastructure.
Latency
The time delay between sending a request and receiving a response, measured in milliseconds.
Network Packet
A formatted unit of data carried over a network, containing headers with routing information and a payload with the actual data.
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