Tailscale is among the top choice in technologies that allows you to create secure private networks. It utilizes a mesh network and traffic is not tunneled through a centralized server like in traditional VPN solutions. The decentralization available in Tailscale gives you better performance and reliability over similar solutions.
Tailscale is also known to handle complex kind of network configs and bypass firewalls while automatically connecting devices. Adding devices to the mesh network is easy and automation script that does installations and configurations is also available.
In this short tutorial we perform the installation and configurations of Tailscale on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7.
If the CentOS 7 repositories are no working, check out the following article:
1. Add Tailscale repository
The latest packages of Tailscale are distributed in a YUM repository for RHEL based systems such as CentOS.
Add the repo in your system by running the commands below.
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/centos/7/tailscale.repoClean package index cache.
sudo yum clean all
sudo yum makecache2. Install Tailscale on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7
Run the following commands to perform the installation of Tailscale package.
sudo yum install tailscaleConfirm installation is successful and without issues.
...
Dependencies Resolved
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
tailscale x86_64 1.66.3-1 tailscale-stable 27 M
Transaction Summary
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total download size: 27 M
Installed size: 48 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
warning: /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7-8.2003.5.el7.sangoma/tailscale-stable/packages/tailscale_1.66.3_x86_64.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 957f5868: NOKEY-] 2.8 MB/s | 26 MB 00:00:00 ETA
Public key for tailscale_1.66.3_x86_64.rpm is not installed
tailscale_1.66.3_x86_64.rpm | 27 MB 00:00:10
Retrieving key from https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/centos/7/repo.gpg
Importing GPG key 0x957F5868:
Userid : "Tailscale Inc. (Package repository signing key) <[email protected]>"
Fingerprint: 2596 a99e aab3 3821 893c 0a79 458c a832 957f 5868
From : https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/centos/7/repo.gpg
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
Verifying : tailscale-1.66.3-1.x86_64 1/1
Installed:
tailscale.x86_64 0:1.66.3-1
Complete!3. Start service and Configure Tailscale
Next configure Tailscale service to start at system boot.
sudo systemctl enable --now tailscaledConfigure connection to Tailscale control plane.
sudo tailscale up
For terminal based connections, you will need to provide authentication key.
tailscale up --login-server https://controlplane.tailscale.com \
--authkey <Auth-Key> --accept-routes --force-reauth --resetSee how to generate Tailscale authentication keys.
Check the status.
# tailscale status
100.106.67.118 freepbx josphatkmutai@ linux -
100.115.255.111 opnsense-homelab tagged-devices freebsd -
100.98.36.122 techwizpro josphatkmutai@ macOS offline
# Health check:
# - not connected to home DERP region 18Check if connection is successful and troubleshoot when failed. To check Tailscale IPv4 address, run:
$ tailscale ip -4
100.106.67.118
