Mobile clients

[ptman]

Tailscale has clients for linux, Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Linux, Windows and macOS can be told to connect to a headscale server. I'm not aware of a way to do that on Android or iOS.

Can the (open source) android client be compiled with another server or be patched to allow server selection? What about iOS?

[outbackdingo]

sounds more like a tailscale question then headscale

[ptman]

Sort of, but it doesn't affect users of tailscale that don't use headscale.

[juanfont]

Selecting the control server will be coming in the future for the official mobile clients (https://twitter.com/dave_universetf/status/1415046381996167170).

For the time being is possible to compile the Android client and change the hardcoded ipn.Prefs when calling the library.

[juanfont]

I will close this for the time being...

[kradalby]

For people who wonder how to tell macOS to connect to headscale:

Install from App Store:

/Applications/Tailscale.app/Contents/MacOS/Tailscale up -login-server <YOUR HEADSCALE> --accept-routes

[tombh]

I wonder if it might also be useful to mention in the README that Headscale doesn't yet support mobile clients natively? Just took me a bit of digging to get here and so realise that Headscale wasn't going to be so useful in my case.

[kradalby]

I wonder if it might also be useful to mention in the README that Headscale doesn't yet support mobile clients natively? Just took me a bit of digging to get here and so realise that Headscale wasn't going to be so useful in my case.

Would be a good idea, would you be able to submit a PR?

We could have a table with os, client combos

[crisidev]

A little guide on how to hack the Tailscale Android Client.

Patch https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale-android/blob/fe76bef85b8386f1c74edd831d701f312047eed2/cmd/tailscale/backend.go#L112 to look like this:

func (b *backend) Start(notify func(n ipn.Notify)) error {
    b.backend.SetNotifyCallback(notify)
    prefs := ipn.NewPrefs()
    prefs.ControlURL = "https://myheadscale.example.org"
    opts := ipn.Options{
    StateKey: "ipn-android",
        UpdatePrefs: prefs,
    }
    return b.backend.Start(opts)
}

Compile tailscale-android with make tailscale-debug.apk and adb install -f tailscale-debug.apk

Login on the app without SSO and it should bring you to the headscale page with the instructions to register the new node.

Hope it help others :)

[ironicbadger]

It is disappointing to see this issue closed without official support in the clients for all mobile platforms.

[kradalby]

It is for us to support.

We are lucky to be able to use Tailscale's clients that they have put lots of engineering time to in most cases.

[boehs]

Could tailscale android be patched to introduce a configuration option?

[Akruidenberg]

I have the same question.

[artemklevtsov]

I managed to automate the process using GitLab CI.

.gitlab-ci.yml:

variables:
  GIT_TAG: "1.23.148-t7c7f37342-gb4f8e7f90a4"
  GIT_REPO: "tailscale/tailscale-android"

stages:
  - docker
  - build
  - upload

.fetch-repo: &fetch-repo
  - curl -o tailscale-android.zip https://codeload.github.com/${GIT_REPO}/zip/refs/tags/${GIT_TAG}
  - unzip -q tailscale-android.zip
  - mv -n tailscale-android-${GIT_TAG}/* .
  - rm -rf tailscale-android.zip tailscale-android-${GIT_TAG}

build-image:
  stage: docker
  image: docker:20.10
  services:
    - docker:20.10-dind
  variables:
    DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay2
    DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR: "/certs"
  script:
    - apk add curl
    - *fetch-repo
    - docker login -u gitlab-ci-token -p ${CI_BUILD_TOKEN} ${CI_REGISTRY}
    - docker pull ${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE} || true
    - docker build --cache-from ${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE} --tag ${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE} .
    - docker push ${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}

build-apk:
  stage: build
  image: ${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}
  script:
    - apt-get install -y patch
    - *fetch-repo
    - sed -i "s|@LOGIN_SERVER_URL@|${LOGIN_SERVER_URL}|g" backend.patch
    - patch -p0 < backend.patch
    - make tailscale-fdroid.apk
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - tailscale-fdroid.apk

upload-apk:
  stage: upload
  image: curlimages/curl:latest
  script:
    - export TAILSCALE_APK=tailscale-fdroid.apk
    - export TAILSCALE_VERSION=$(echo ${GIT_TAG} | cut -d - -f 1)
    - 'curl --header "JOB-TOKEN: ${CI_JOB_TOKEN}" --upload-file ${TAILSCALE_APK} ${CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/generic/tailscale/${TAILSCALE_VERSION}/${TAILSCALE_APK}'

backend.patch:

--- cmd/tailscale/backend-fix.go	2022-04-01 19:34:35.375976556 +0700
+++ cmd/tailscale/backend.go	2022-04-01 19:34:23.224731221 +0700
@@ -136,9 +136,13 @@
 
 func (b *backend) Start(notify func(n ipn.Notify)) error {
 	b.backend.SetNotifyCallback(notify)
-	return b.backend.Start(ipn.Options{
+	prefs := ipn.NewPrefs()
+	prefs.ControlURL = "@LOGIN_SERVER_URL@"
+	opts := ipn.Options{
 		StateKey: "ipn-android",
-	})
+		UpdatePrefs: prefs,
+	}
+	return b.backend.Start(opts)
 }
 
 func (b *backend) LinkChange() {

Note: set LOGIN_SERVER_URL variable in CI settings.

[half-duplex]

I wrote a kinda gross patch that allows you to enter your own server info, here's the APK for anyone who doesn't want to compile their own. Forked from tailscale/tailscale-android@51fc2e7 (~v1.23.152)

[GrahamJenkins]

Tested and using this gross patch. Seems to be working well, great hack @half-duplex!

I probably should just fork their repo, apply the changes and set up an auto build to make my own apk, but good enough for now. Thanks!

[FarisZR]

I have set up build on push using GH actions in my repo, and it will upload an artifact(apk file) for each build.
https://github.com/FZR-forks/tailscale-android

It includes @half-duplex patch.

[FarisZR]

It seems that GitHub only allows the repo owner to download the artifact ?

We can side-step that by just creating an F-droid repo which will have the app in it.
But that's for another day 😅

[mrbluecoat]

Any chance we can disable the ability to toggle off the VPN? Would love to use an enforced exit node: tailscale/tailscale#1698

[half-duplex]

@mrbluecoat Please open new issues in the appropriate repo and do not comment on unrelated ones.

[0x1a8510f2]

Good news y'all :D tailscale/tailscale-android#55

[half-duplex]

To put instructions here for easier googling:
In test builds or once v1.30.0 of the official Android Tailscale client is out, you should be able to set a custom control server by opening and closing the login screen's 3-dot menu 6 times then selecting the menu option that appears.

Would be good to add this to the headscale docs, but I don't want to bother before the patch is released.