Tailscale

Towertail can read the list of peers on your tailnet and add them as SSH servers. Tailscale is optional. Towertail also connects to servers that are not on a tailnet.

Requirements

• The Tailscale app for macOS is in /Applications/Tailscale.app.
• Tailscale runs on your Mac and you are logged in.
• Each peer accepts SSH logins. Towertail uses the normal SSH server on the peer.

If Towertail cannot find Tailscale, the Tailscale source shows “Tailscale not detected” and you cannot select it.

Import your tailnet

1. Open the settings and select the Servers tab.
2. Click Import….
3. Select Tailscale. Towertail gets the list of peers from the Tailscale app. Your own Mac is not in the list.
4. Optional: turn on Prefer MagicDNS name over IP. Read MagicDNS names.
5. Click Next.
6. Examine the list. Clear the check box of each peer that you do not want.
7. Set the SSH user. Towertail uses your Mac user name as the default. To change it for all rows, type a name in Default SSH user and click Apply user.
8. Set the login for each row: Key or Password. For keys, read Add hosts.
9. Optional: click Test all selected.
10. Click Deploy. Towertail connects to each server and copies the sampler to it.

Towertail copies the Tailscale tags of each peer to the tags of the server.

MagicDNS names

By default, Towertail uses the Tailscale IP address of each peer, for example 100.x.y.z.

When you turn on Prefer MagicDNS name over IP, Towertail uses the MagicDNS name of the peer, for example db-primary.tailnet-name.ts.net. Towertail remembers this choice for the next import.

Tip

A MagicDNS name stays the same when the IP address of a peer changes. Use MagicDNS names if MagicDNS is on in your tailnet.

Add one tailnet server

You can also add one peer by hand. Follow the steps in Add hosts. In Address, type the Tailscale IP address or the MagicDNS name of the peer.