headscale

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

Join our Discord server for a chat.

Note: Always select the same GitHub tag as the released version you use to ensure you have the correct example configuration and documentation. The main branch might contain unreleased changes.

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
• Namespaces support (~tailnets in Tailscale.com naming)
• 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)
• Single-Sign-On (via Open ID Connect)
• Share nodes between 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!

Running headscale

Please have a look at the documentation under docs/.

Disclaimer

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

Contributing

To contribute to Headscale you would need the lastest version of Go and Buf(Protobuf generator).

Install development tools

• Go
• Buf
• Protobuf tools:

make install-protobuf-plugins

Testing and building

Some parts of the project requires the generation of Go code from Protobuf (if changes is made in proto/) and it must be (re-)generated with:

make generate

Note: Please check in changes from gen/ in a separate commit to make it easier to review.

To run the tests:

make test

To build the program:

make build

Contributors

Juan Font	Kristoffer Dalby	Ward Vandewege	ohdearaugustin	unreality	Aaron Bieber
Paul Tötterman	Casey Marshall	Silver Bullet	thomas	Arthur Woimbée	Felix Kronlage-Dammers
Felix Yan	Shaanan Cohney	Teteros	The Gitter Badger	Tianon Gravi	Tjerk Woudsma
Zakhar Bessarab	derelm	ignoramous	zy