How to install Tailscale?

[ClementNerma]

Installing TailScale requires to add their custom repository, which does not seem to be possible in VanillaOS.

How can I circumvent that and still use it? Installing inside an APX env does not work obviously.

Thanks :)

[taukakao]

Sorry for the late reply, but sadly, this requires a custom image. Instructions for that can be found here:
https://github.com/vanilla-os/custom-image

[rickysarraf]

GitHub is imposing a restriction on the size of .deb to 25 MiB max. So the procedure of just dropping a .deb file in includes.container/deb-pkgs is not going to work for large size packages.

[taukakao]

You can follow the instructions from here:
https://tailscale.com/download/linux/debian-sid
using a shell module in your vib recipe.

Just leave out the "sudo", since everything is running as superuser already while building the image.

[rickysarraf]

THank you. Yes. That's what I did.

rrs@deskhp:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Vanilla
Description:	Vanilla OS 2.0
Release:	2.0
Codename:	orchid

rrs@deskhp:~$ tailscale status
Logged out.

rrs@deskhp:~$ tailscale version
1.90.9
  tailscale commit: 6e8a4f2de795ae6801f4b599e3f64ca6b5465c01
  long version: 1.90.9-t6e8a4f2de-g19196f361
  other commit: 19196f3617f75c3898c4fdfd4e82dcf9d258a04b
  go version: go1.25.3

For anyone wanting to look at the changes, please see my fork.

@taukakao The way Vanilla OS is structured, I'm loving it. Thank you to the Vanilla OS team for such an awesome work. 🤟🏽

[0chroma]

For anyone looking for a way to do this without having to use an alternative image, this is the script I use to set up tailscale inside distrobox:

host-shell pkexec bash -c "mkdir -p /var/run/tailscale && echo 'd /var/run/tailscale 0755 root root -' | tee /etc/tmpfiles.d/tailscale-socket.conf"
host-shell distrobox create tailscale --init --image debian:12 -a "--cap-add=NET_ADMIN" --additional-packages systemd --root --volume /var/run/tailscale:/var/run/tailscale:rw
host-shell distrobox enter --root tailscale -- bash -c "(curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh) && sudo systemctl enable --now tailscaled && distrobox-export -b /usr/bin/tailscale && sudo tailscale login && sudo tailscale set --operator=$USER"
host-shell pkexec bash -c "
    cat > /etc/systemd/system/tailscale-container.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Prepare and start the tailscale container
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
After=local-fs.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/mkdir -p /run/tailscale
ExecStart=/usr/bin/podman start tailscale
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

    systemctl daemon-reload &&
    systemctl enable tailscale-container.service
"

Once it's finished, follow the link to sign in and add the machine to your tailnet. After that you should be able to manage it via Trayscale if you'd like.

To uninstall:

host-shell pkexec distrobox rm --root tailscale
host-shell pkexec rm /etc/tmpfiles.d/tailscale-socket.conf /etc/systemd/system/tailscale-container.service

For what it's worth, Netbird seems much easier to get set up: https://docs.netbird.io/get-started/install/linux#fedora-universal-blue-steam-os-distro-box

Also somewhat relevant, I haven't tested this at all though: https://github.com/suikan4github/Using-tailscale-client-on-an-Immutable-OS

[riiadesign]

This worked for me! Running VanillaOS 2.0, Tailscale 1.94.2 and Trayscale 0.18.7, everything seems to work the same as my Windows install, if not better when using the third party GUI. Thank you!