Show HN: lambda-nat-proxy – Serverless proxy using Lambda and UDP NAT punching

https://github.com/dan-v/lambda-nat-proxy

18•danvittegleo•7mo ago

Revisited an old experiment of mine (https://github.com/dan-v/awslambdaproxy): can AWS Lambda functions work as network proxies? This time using UDP NAT hole punching + QUIC tunnels.

Client discovers public IP via STUN, writes session data to S3, which triggers a Lambda. Both endpoints punch UDP holes through their NATs, then establish a QUIC connection for encrypted traffic forwarding.

Comments

danfritz•7mo ago

Looks cool but how much does it cost?

danvittegleo•7mo ago

Like most things with AWS, it’s tricky to pin down exactly - and it’ll probably cost more than you’d expect once you factor in Lambda invocations, GB-seconds of execution time, S3 request fees, and especially data‐transfer charges.

js4ever•7mo ago

10x the original cost it's trying to avoid probably

pbnjay•7mo ago

Probably gets pretty costly if you’re running a lot of data through it. Now if you could implement a Tailscale DERP server in a lambda that would be pretty amazing: https://tailscale.com/kb/1232/derp-servers

danvittegleo•7mo ago

I did toy around with Tailscale initially trying to get it to spin up as an exit node but wasn't able to get that functional. I did manage to get Tailscale Funnel to work as the tunnel mechanism to Lambda, but unfortunately the performance was really poor.

shayonj•7mo ago

Very interesting concept. I’d love some cheap and “throw away” method of setting up tunnels with minimal onus on the exit nodes.

robcohen•7mo ago

Alternatively, you could make a Nix flake that can generate an immutable microVM image based on Solo5, running a MirageOS unikernel that implements NAT traversal with UDP hole punching and relay fallback. This image can be deployed to Fly.io as a lightweight, autoscaling Firecracker VM with per-second billing. It boots in milliseconds and costs far less than Lambda.

Any reason to use lambda vs this cloud-agnostic approach? Maybe I am missing something. I guess per second vs per 100ms billing, but I can't imagine it ends up being cheaper with Lambda.

danvittegleo•7mo ago

Absolutely - there are plenty of more cost-effective, cloud-agnostic ways to build something like this. This is just an experiment to explore Lambda networking and push it beyond its intended use cases.

robcohen•7mo ago

Sure, I think it's an awesome effort. Just trying to think of an agnostic approach that's more efficient.

wredcoll•7mo ago

I honestly thought this post was satire for at least 30 seconds.

robcohen•7mo ago

I'm not trying to disparage the attempt, just thinking of a way to make it's end goal more agnostic and efficient.

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Show HN: lambda-nat-proxy – Serverless proxy using Lambda and UDP NAT punching

Comments