[ANNOUNCE] WireGuardNT, a high-performance WireGuard implementation for the Windows kernel

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

Hi again,

On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 1:52 PM Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason at zx2c4.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2021 at 7:28 PM Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason at zx2c4.com> wrote:
> > Nonetheless, experimental or not, we still need people to test this and help
> > shake out issues. To that end, WireGuardNT is now available in the ordinary
> > WireGuard for Windows client -- https://www.wireguard.com/install/ -- with the
> > 0.4.z series, in addition to having full support of the venerable wg(8)
> > utility, but currently (August 2021; if you're reading this in the future this
> > might not apply) it is behind a manually set registry knob. There will be
> > three phases of the 0.4.z series:
> >
> >   Phase 1) WireGuardNT is hidden behind the "ExperimentalKernelDriver"
> >            registry knob. If you don't manually tinker around to enable it,
> >            the client will continue to use wireguard-go/Wintun like before.
>
> After the first few days, bug reports for WireGuardNT have died down
> considerably. It's hard to tell whether that's a sign that the
> software is stable or that nobody is using it. So, we're still in
> phase 1. However, with version 0.4.5 of the client, I've added a
> checkbox below the "activate" button in order to make the experimental
> testing more discoverable. I dislike such knobs, but I'd rather have
> more testing than less, before turning it on by default. Hopefully
> this will make it easier for alpha testers to give it a spin and
> report findings. If you have been testing the driver, and it's been
> working well for you, please write in to say so, simply as a signal
> that it is being tested. If things stay as quiet as they are now on
> the bug reporting front, we'll likely move into phase 2 -- enabling
> WireGuardNT by default, with a registry key to revert to the legacy
> implementation -- in 2 to 3 weeks.

We're still technically in phase 1, but with the version that should
be coming out later today, users who have enrolled in the Windows
Insider Program have "ExperimentalKernelDriver" set to always on,
unless the "IgnoreInsiderProgram" admin knob is set. In other words,
we're gradually ramping up testing coverage. I still hope to move into
phase 2 soon, but this seemed like a cautious intermediate step.

Regards,
Jason