Notes - installing Tailscale on a Raspberry Pi (or any Linux device)

Recently, I set up my Raspberry Pi as a Tailscale exit node because I can't trust big companies and my school's internet.

So I did what most people who's Bluesky PDS stopped working and lost access to their old account and now has a Raspberry Pi that's not in use and watches LTT. So I set up my Pi up as a Tailscale exit node.

to install my way as a exit node:

Update stuff:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

run this command that does something

curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/jammy.noarmor.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/tailscale-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

and this one

curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/ubuntu/jammy.tailscale-keyring.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tailscale.list

update

sudo apt-get update

install tailscale

sudo apt-get install tailscale

advertise as exit node, replace 10.0.0.0 with your "root ip"

for example if your ip is 10.0.0.233 your root ip is 10.0.0.0

sudo tailscale up --advertise-routes=10.0.0.0/24 --advertise-exit-node

if you dont want to run as a exit node run

sudo tailscale up

after you login

update again because you should

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

go to Tailscale dashboard

click the three dots on your device

click "disable key expiry", then make sure it says "enable key expiry"

then click "edit route settings"

"unable to relay traffic"

if don't see this click skip this

once you click and you see "unable to relay traffic" message, this is because your device (exit node) needs IP forwarding

to set up ip forwarding

if your linux device has the /etc/sysctl.d directory run:

echo 'net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
echo 'net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf

if not run

echo 'net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
echo 'net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf

then

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

then refresh the Tailscale dashboard

click the check box on the route you advertised then click "Use as exit node"

click save

then install Tailscale on your phone, Mac, windows pc, etc here

after thats done follow me on bluesky and check out my website: