Tailscale

Hard NAT on both sides forces DERP relay connection degrading performance

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Connection ManagementUpdated Jan 7, 2026(via Exa)
Technologies:
How to detect:

When both devices in a Tailscale connection are behind hard NAT configurations (restrictive NAT with complex port allocation, disabled port mapping protocols like UPnP/PCP/NAT-PMP, or short idle timeouts), direct peer-to-peer connections fail and traffic must relay through DERP servers, reducing performance.

Recommended action:

Run 'tailscale netcheck' on both devices to confirm hard NAT. Check if MappingVariesByDestIP is true and PortMapping is false. If possible, enable UPnP, PCP, or NAT-PMP on network devices. Otherwise, deploy a Tailscale Peer Relay server in your infrastructure for better relay performance than public DERP servers.