May Tailscale newsletter

Laura Franzese on
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šŸ‘‰ We’d love to hear your thoughts on Tailscale. Filling out this feedback form helps us build a better product for you: https://forms.gle/FA9UJwiTbdoRzKsK7

This has been a busy month, with the launch of Tailscale v1.8 and a new feature, Taildrop, that lets you easily send files between your devices. Here’s a quick preview before we jump into this month’s update:

Send a file using Taildrop

Community Contributions

From the Tailscale team

Tailscale v1.8

General Fixes and Improvements

We’ve added a long-awaitedĀ tailscale logoutĀ command. We also now allow clients access to an exit node’s public IPs.

TheĀ tailscale upĀ command now warns when options are being changed by omission. For example, if you usedĀ tailscale up --advertise-route=192.168.0.0/24Ā and thenĀ tailscale up --advertise-exit-node, it would notice and warn that theĀ advertise-routeĀ would be removed.

šŸ› We added the tailscale bugreport command to add a marker in your logs, along with an optional note. If you run it shortly after a problem occurs (or ideally both before and after reproducing a problem) it will make it easier forĀ support@tailscale.comĀ to find the details in your logs. Note that you still need to send an email or file a bug: the bugreport only adds a known point in the logs so we can work with you to solve it more efficiently.

There was a large effort to improve and address DNS configuration issues and MagicDNS across all platforms. This leads nicely into our work on another new feature…

Split DNS

Split DNS lets you set a DNS server that is only used for specific domain names — something users with complicated DNS configs have been asking for. Split DNS enables better control over where DNS requests go, and allows you to apply more advanced policies. For example, you could route DNS queries for your AWS VPC to one server, and queries for your Azure private network to another one, without interfering with regular DNS on your LAN.

Split DNS is complementary to MagicDNS. You can create split DNS configs with and without MagicDNS, and this is now generally available to everyone.

View of split DNS

Admin Console Updates

The admin UI now has a new ā€œSettingsā€ panel, includingĀ a page for ā€œfeature previewsā€Ā letting admins to easily toggle features on and off. Use this page to opt your network into new Tailscale features.

Overview of settings

Taildrop (alpha)

Taildrop makes it easy to send files between your personal devices on a Tailscale network. Like all traffic sent over Tailscale, Taildrop transfers files over encrypted peer-to-peer connections, using the fastest available path. This makes it a great solution for sending sensitive or large files without third-party servers in the middle.

šŸ“¢ This feature is in public alpha, with many planned improvements to the UX and capabilities. To try Taildrop today, you’ll need toĀ opt-in for your networkĀ and use Tailscale v1.8 or later.

You can transfer any kind of files with Taildrop. Taildrop is currently limited to sending files between your own personal devices.Ā You cannot send files to devices owned by other usersĀ even on the same Tailscale network.

To send a file with Taildrop:

Taildrop menu overview

What a month!

We’d love to hear any feedback you have about how we can make Tailscale better. Send us an email or reply to @Tailscale on Twitter.

That’s all for now — stay well!

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