Tailscale + Homelab?
For a long time i accessed my local services using Twingate, with it’s pros and cons, it’s a very straightforward solution, but it has some limitations, like the free plan only allows 3 devices, and the performance is not the best. Though a collegue a discovered Tailscale, and i was amazed by it’s simplicity and performance, so i decided to give it a try. The limitations of the free plan are accettable for my use case and the idea of using Wireguard as the underlying protocol is very appealing, i like the idea to create a mesh network in my homelab, in case one of my devices goes down, i can still access my services from other devices.
Setup
In my homelab i have multiple physical servers (all old x64 machine and a jetson nano) running AlmaLinux with my docker instances, services, ecc. I’ve installed Tailscale via the official repo, following the official guide then setup my tailnet making my servers “expose” my lan address to be able to access all my hosts and services from outside my home.
I also installed Tailscale on a raspberry pi zero w (DietPI) to have a “deployable” node to use when i’m out, this way i can expose the lan were the pi is attached to my tailnet, this way i can use it like a phisical bridge to access resource were i need.
Really cool feature
After a couple of days of trying things, my eyes fell for a really interesting feature, the “funnel” option, this allow you to expose a local service to the internet via a Tailscale node, this is really useful when you want to expose a service that is behind a NAT or firewall, without the need to open ports or configure your router, or if you have a heavy NATted network like myself. This is super cool then you want to share files, projects or beta with friends or collegues (with the full control, the services have a manual trigger to start the funnel, so you can decide when to expose the service).
