TrueNAS Tailscale Companion

truenas-tailscale is a companion program for TrueNAS installs.

It will make your TrueNAS install and app portals available on your Tailnet automagically, complete with LetsEncrypt certificates.

Why?

Compared to installing the Tailscale app, this tool gives you:

• Internal DNS names for each of your apps.
• Automatic TLS for your apps and TrueNAS UI.

Limitations

• Only forwards the first Portal for a given App.
• No support for other services (such as SSH, MinIO) over the Tailnet right now.
• Tailscale Auth Key must be renewed every 90 days right now.

Installation

0. Sign up for Tailscale (if you haven't already). Enable MagicDNS and HTTPS.
1. Configure a Tailscale auth key in the web portal under Settings > Keys.

• Reusable: True.
• Expiration: 90 days (Note: you will need a new key every 90 days).
• Ephemeral: True (Recommended).
• Tags: tag:truenas-tailscale (optional - for access control and management).

2. Configure a TrueNAS API key. In the TrueNAS UI: Settings > API Keys > Add.

• Settings is in the top-right of the TrueNAS UI, under the user profile pic, next to the power icon.
• You can also find it here: https://truenas/ui/apikeys (use your own truenas hostname).

3. Create a TrueNAS custom app under Apps > Discover Apps > Custom App.

• Application Name: truenas-tailscale.
• Repository: dwurf/truenas-tailscale.
• Environment Variables
  • TS_AUTHKEY: set to the key you created in step 1.
  • TS_HOSTNAME: truenas-tailscale (or whatever you want your node name to be called in Tailscale).
  • TRUENAS_API_KEY: set to the key you created in step 2.
  • TRUENAS_HOSTNAME: set to 172.16.0.1 (the default IP for truenas from within Docker).
• Restart Policy: Unless Stopped.
• Create a Storage Configuration.
  • Type ixVolume.
  • Read Only: False.
  • Mount Path: /root/.config/truenas-tailscale.
  • Dataset Name: tailscale-config.

Detailed Usage

The command can be downloaded and run directly from the Releases page, see instructions below.

$ truenas-tailscale -h
Usage of truenas-tailscale:
  -tailscale-api-key string
    	Tailscale API Key (env: TS_AUTHKEY).
  -tailscale-hostname string
    	Hostname to use in the tailnet. Defaults to the hostname configured in TrueNAS (env: TS_HOSTNAME).
  -truenas-api-key string
    	TrueNAS API key (env: TRUENAS_API_KEY).
  -truenas-hostname string
    	TrueNAS hostname or IP (env: TRUENAS_HOSTNAME). (default "127.0.0.1")

Example:

$ export TS_AUTHKEY=tskey-auth-abc123 TRUENAS_API_KEY=1-OKabc123
$ truenas-tailscale -tailscale-hostname my-truenas-host

Note: the command can be run anywhere that can connect to your NAS, it doesn't have to be directly on the NAS.