Tailscale RUT956 Custom Install

Networking Solutions
1

Hey I’ve seen some posts about people wanting to get Tailscale working on the RUT956 device, and I wanted to post my experiences. There’s not enough flash memory to support Tailscale with a package, but I’ve successfully installed and used Tailscale when expanding the RUT956 with a usb

I wanted to post my steps and experiences

  1. Ensure you understand the architecture of Teltonika devices: Teltonika Modules, Routers, and Gateways Architecture

    Visit the Tailscale download page and select the appropriate package for your architecture: Tailscale Packages. For the RUT956 I use the mips64le binary
    3. SSH into RUT956 and run:
    mkdir tailscale; cd tailscale curl https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/tailscale_1.66.1_mipsle.tgz --output tailscale.tgz tar x -zvC ./ -f tailscale.tgz
    4. Install Tailscale binary:
    cd tailscale_1.66.1_mipsle cp tailscale /bin cp tailscaled /bin
    5. Vim and edit the following config:
    vim /etc/init.d/tailscale

    Copyright 2020 Google LLC.

SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

USE_PROCD=1
START=99
STOP=1

start_service() {
procd_open_instance
procd_set_param command /bin/tailscaled
procd_append_param command --port 41641
procd_append_param command --state /etc/config/tailscaled.state
procd_append_param command --statedir /etc/tailscale/
procd_set_param respawn
procd_set_param stdout 1
procd_set_param stderr 1
procd_close_instance
}

stop_service() {
/bin/tailscaled --cleanup
}

    1. Set executable permissions:

      chmod 775 /etc/init.d/tailscale chmod 775 /bin/tailscale chmod 775 /bin/tailscaled

    2. Install Dependencies
      opkg update opkg install libustream-openssl ca-bundle kmod-tun

    3. Modify the firewall configuration:

      vim /etc/config/firewall and append this configuration at the end:

      config zone option device 'tailscale+' option name 'tailscale' option src 'wan' option input 'ACCEPT' option forward 'REJECT' option output 'REJECT'

    4. Start and Enable Tailscale

      /etc/init.d/tailscale start /etc/init.d/tailscale enable

    5. Run Tailscale with your authentication settings:

      tailscale up --accept-dns=false --authkey tskey-auth-XXXXXXXXXXXXX8awYrWtzXXXXXXX7bHXXXXXXXXXXXXXX --ssh --hostname=tonik2

    6. Reboot the Device

      reboot

      Post-Reboot

      • After rebooting, Tailscale will start and advertise routes automatically.
      • Note: Firmware updates may remove the Tailscale configuration, so re-apply settings after an update.

I used Tailscale on this device no problem. The only downside is having to flash expand the teltonika which you can do very easily with the Teltonika GUI but now the usb is a fail point, not reliable long-term I imagine.

2

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your experience and setup.

I would like to remind all users that this configuration is not officially supported and may lead to errors in the future, so please keep that in mind.

Best regards,