I would really really really like to have one device on my tailnet as the exitnode for all other devices on the tailnet. However, most VPNs make this really difficult. Is there any way to do this? I’ve read it’s possible with split-tunnelling, but ProtonVPN (which I use) doesn’t support that. I just installed Alpine Linux on my RPI 4b. And would like to use this as my exit node. Does anyone have any tips for how this could be done?
I have solved this problem! The trick is to use two Docker containers:
- Gluetun (https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun): set this up to connect to your VPN.
- Tailscale (https://tailscale.com/kb/1282/docker/): set this to use the Gluetun network.
Here is an example docker-compose.yml:
version: "3"
services:
gluetun:
image: qmcgaw/gluetun
container_name: gluetun
# line above must be uncommented to allow external containers to connect.
# See https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki/blob/main/setup/connect-a-container-to-gluetun.md#external-container-to-gluetun
restart: unless-stopped
cap_add:
- NET_ADMIN
devices:
- /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
volumes:
- ./gluetun:/gluetun
environment:
- VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=airvpn
- VPN_TYPE=wireguard
- WIREGUARD_PRIVATE_KEY=xxx
- WIREGUARD_PRESHARED_KEY=xxx
- WIREGUARD_ADDRESSES=xxx
- WIREGUARD_MTU=1320
- SERVER_COUNTRIES=United States
# See https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki/tree/main/setup#setup
# Timezone for accurate log times
- TZ=America/New_York
# Server list updater
# See https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki/blob/main/setup/servers.md#update-the-vpn-servers-list
- UPDATER_PERIOD=24h
tailscale:
container_name: tailscale
cap_add:
- NET_ADMIN
- NET_RAW
volumes:
- ./tailscale/var/lib:/var/lib
- ./tailscale/state:/state
- /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
network_mode: "service:gluetun"
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
- TS_HOSTNAME=airvpn-exit-node
- TS_AUTHKEY=xxxxxxxx
- TS_EXTRA_ARGS=--login-server=https://example.com --advertise-exit-node
- TS_NO_LOGS_NO_SUPPORT=true
- TS_STATE_DIR=/state
image: tailscale/tailscale
Wow! You know what, I was just thinking about using Gleutun for this enefore I went to bed last night, and then I wake up to this gem of a message!! 😅 Well done sir, I’ll be cooking this up ASAP!
Let me know how it works out for you! I’m happy to be able to share this. I was very pleased with myself but had no one to tell haha. I actually have several copies of this set up with each Gluetun instance connected to different countries. Then, changing country is as easy as changing your tailnet exit node!
Hell yeah, got that working in an instant! Appreciate the pointer, have a great weekend! :)
For anyone trying this, make sure you do not have “- TS_USERSPACE=false” in your yaml from previous experimentation. After removing this, it works for me too.
In the documentation they say to add sysctl entries, it is possible in docker compose like so:
tailscale:
sysctls:
- net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
- net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1
But it does not seem to make a difference for me. Does anyone know why these would not be required in this specific setup?
