Tailscale Systray

A system tray application (StatusNotifierItem) for managing Tailscale VPN connections on Linux systems.

Features

• Quick access to Tailscale status from the system tray
• Connect/disconnect to Tailscale with a single click
• View online peers and copy their IPs to the clipboard
• Configure and use exit nodes
• Advertise your device as an exit node
• Network namespace isolation: Run tailscaled in an isolated network namespace. Exit nodes can be used by only a set of processes.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Tailscale CLI installed
• A Linux desktop environment with StatusNotifierItem support

Pre-built binaries

Binaries are available in GitHub releases.

From Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/cataphact/tailscale-systray.git
cd tailscale-systray

# Build the application
cargo build --release

# Copy the binary somewhere
sudo cp target/release/tailscale-systray /usr/local/bin/

# Copy icons/.desktop files for current user (invoke the *copied* executable!)
tailscale-systray install

Alternatively:

cargo install tailscale-systray
~/.cargo/bin/tailscale-systray install

Some native libraries (libmnl, libnftnl) are required.

Usage

Command-line Arguments

Application Indicator (SNI) for Tailscale

Usage: tailscale-systray [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  run         Run the application normally
  install     Install icons and desktop file
  ns-prepare  Prepare segregated networking
  ns-helper   Launch namespace fd supplier
  ns-enter    Enter the namespaces for the segregated network and execute
  systemd     Systemd integration commands
  help        Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -v, --verbosity <VERBOSITY>  Verbosity level (0-5, where 0=error, 1=warn, 2=info, 3=debug, 4=trace, 5=trace+) [default: 2]
  -h, --help                   Print help
  -V, --version                Print version

System Tray Features

• Left-click: Opens the menu
• Status indicator:
  • Green checkmark: Tailscale is up and connected
  • Blue globe: Connected through an exit node
  • Red X: Tailscale is down or not connected
  • Red circumference around to signal running in separate namespace
• Menu options:
  • Enable/Disable Tailscale
  • View online peers (click to copy IP)
  • Configure exit nodes
  • Advertise as an exit node
  • Allow LAN access
  • Enable/disable namespace isolation (systemd only)
  • Run command in namespace

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Acknowledgements

• Tailscale for their excellent VPN service

• KSNI for the StatusNotifierItem implementation