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Setup TailScale VPN Server on Synology RT6600ax Router

TailScale is great VPN. It is even greater if it runs all the time on a router! Currently it is available as 3rd party package for Synology NAS (X64-based) machines, but not for Routers (usually ARM64-based). *sigh* This blog talks about a way to set it up.

Grab the binaries

  • Copy (scp) over these two files to Synology router, say under your home directory’s subdirectory, “tailscale”.

Testing

  • Download the script that starts/stops the tailscale daemon
    • This script is derived from TailScale’s original script and is adapted to SRM environment
  • MODIFY SCRIPT with your own path for PKGVAR variable
  • Now type “./start-stop-status start” and “./start-stop-status status”
  • For the first time running, type “./tailscale –socket tailscaled.sock up –advertise-exit-node” and perform web-based login/setup. See my previous post.

Start up TailScale automatically

Copy the start-stop-status script to /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ directory

sudo cp start-stop-status /usr/local/etc/rc.d/tailscale

HELP! However this setup current does not seem to work, while it should. I’m still investigating.

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Set Up TailScale VPN Server on AWS

TailScale website has an excellent collection of documents. I just want to quickly jot down what I did for simpler reference later. A couple of notes:

  • It runs on AWS EC2 instance (t3a.micro) with Ubuntu 22.04
  • It is a server node, a.k.a. exit node in TailScale terms.

Install

curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/jammy.noarmor.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/tailscale-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null
curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/jammy.tailscale-keyring.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tailscale.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tailscale

First-time setup

We need to create an account first. Then we will be asked to login and make this machine as server, i.e., exit node.

sudo tailscale up   # perform web login
sudo tailscale up --advertise-exit-node

Log into TailScale website,

  • click on the “…” setting button for the server
  • select “Edit routing …” menu
  • Check “Use as exit node” button.

Usage

To use for yourself, simply turn on tailscale on your phone/PC, and use the above server as the exit node.

To share the server with others, go to tailscale web portal and click on “Share …” button for the server.

Disable/remove TailScale

sudo systemctl disable --now tailscaled     # to disable

sudo apt purge tailscale                    # to uninstall