headscale

An open source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale coordination server.

Join our Discord server for a chat.

Overview

Tailscale is a modern VPN built on top of Wireguard. It works like an overlay network between the computers of your networks - using all kinds of NAT traversal sorcery.

Everything in Tailscale is Open Source, except the GUI clients for proprietary OS (Windows and macOS/iOS), and the 'coordination/control server'.

The control server works as an exchange point of Wireguard public keys for the nodes in the Tailscale network. It also assigns the IP addresses of the clients, creates the boundaries between each user, enables sharing machines between users, and exposes the advertised routes of your nodes.

Headscale implements this coordination server.

Status

Base functionality (nodes can communicate with each other)
Node registration through the web flow
Network changes are relayed to the nodes
Namespace support (~equivalent to multi-user in Tailscale.com)
Routing (advertise & accept, including exit nodes)
Node registration via pre-auth keys (including reusable keys, and ephemeral node support)
JSON-formatted output
ACLs
Taildrop (File Sharing)
Support for alternative IP ranges in the tailnets (default Tailscale's 100.64.0.0/10)
DNS (passing DNS servers to nodes)
Share nodes between ~~users~~ namespaces
MagicDNS (see docs/)

Client OS support

OS	Supports headscale
Linux	Yes
OpenBSD	Yes
macOS	Yes (see `/apple` on your headscale for more information)
Windows	Yes
Android	You need to compile the client yourself
iOS	Not yet

Roadmap 🤷

Suggestions/PRs welcomed!

Disclaimer

We have nothing to do with Tailscale, or Tailscale Inc.
The purpose of writing this was to learn how Tailscale works.

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