tailscale-quick-setup

A single shell script to install and configure Tailscale on common Linux distros. Zero dependencies beyond curl and sudo.

What it does

• Detects your Linux distribution automatically
• Adds the official Tailscale package repository
• Installs Tailscale from the official repo
• Enables and starts the tailscaled service
• Authenticates with an auth key or interactive browser login
• Optionally uninstalls Tailscale cleanly

Supported distros

• Ubuntu (20.04, 22.04, 24.04+)
• Debian (11, 12+)
• Linux Mint
• Pop!_OS
• Fedora (38, 39, 40+)
• RHEL / CentOS / Rocky / Alma Linux
• Arch Linux / Manjaro / EndeavourOS

Quick start

One-liner to install and log in interactively:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cappy-dev/tailscale-quick-setup/main/tailscale-quick-setup.sh | bash

Or clone and run:

git clone https://github.com/cappy-dev/tailscale-quick-setup.git
cd tailscale-quick-setup
bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh

Usage

bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh [OPTIONS]

Options:

• --auth-key=KEY Authenticate non-interactively with a Tailscale auth key
• --yes, -y Skip all confirmation prompts
• --uninstall Remove Tailscale and clean up repo files
• --help, -h Show help text

Examples

Install and log in via browser:

bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh

Install with an auth key (great for headless servers):

bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh --auth-key=tskey-auth-xxxxx

Install without any prompts:

bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh --auth-key=tskey-auth-xxxxx --yes

Uninstall Tailscale:

bash tailscale-quick-setup.sh --uninstall

After installation

Once Tailscale is running, try these commands:

tailscale status        # check connection status
tailscale ip           # show your Tailscale IP addresses
tailscale up --ssh     # enable SSH access over Tailscale
tailscale down         # disconnect without uninstalling

How it works

1. Reads /etc/os-release to identify your distro
2. Adds the correct Tailscale GPG key and apt/yum/pacman repo
3. Installs the tailscale package from the official source
4. Runs systemctl enable --now tailscaled
5. Calls tailscale up with your auth key or opens a browser login

Requirements

• A supported Linux distribution
• sudo privileges
• curl (installed automatically on Debian/Ubuntu if missing)

License

MIT