Access QNAP NAS from anywhere

Tailscale makes it easy to securely connect to your QNAP NAS devices over WireGuard®.

Tailscale is free for most personal uses, including accessing your NAS.

Supported QNAP hardware

• x86-64bit devices
• arm-64bit devices

Installation steps

1. Open the QNAP App Center.

2. Open the Communications section.

   

3. Locate the Tailscale application and select Install.

4. After the Tailscale app installation is completed, select the Tailscale app icon, and select Open.

5. Log in to your Tailscale network.

   

6. In the Connect device page, select Connect.

The app can also be downloaded from the QNAP App Center website.

Manual installation steps

An alternative to the recommended approach of installing Tailscale from the QNAP App Center is to install Tailscale using a downloadable QNAP package (QPKG). A reason you might want to install from a QPKG is to access new Tailscale features that are not yet released in the Tailscale version that is available from the QNAP App Center.

To manually install Tailscale:

1. Download the QPKG for your QNAP device from the Tailscale Packages server. QNAP QPKGs are available from both stable and unstable release tracks.
2. Open the App Center on your QNAP device.
3. Select Install Manually in the upper right-hand corner, select Browse, select the QPKG (.qpkg) file that you downloaded, and then select Install.
4. Once installation completes, tailscaled should be up and running on your QNAP device, and you should see a new Tailscale app in your My Apps section.

Features

When used with QNAP, Tailscale supports these features:

• Receive Taildrop files from other tailnet devices automatically, when you create a shared folder named "Tailnet" on your NAS.
• Web-based login to any supported identity provider.
• Access your QNAP NAS from anywhere, without opening firewall ports.
• Share your NAS with designated Tailscale users, using node sharing.
• Restrict access to your NAS using ACLs.
• Use your NAS as a subnet router to provide external access to your LAN. This requires using tailscale command line steps.
• Use your NAS as an exit node for secure Internet access from anywhere.

Using the Tailscale CLI

Some Tailscale functionality, such as configuring QNAP to be a subnet router, requires using the tailscale CLI. After you install the Tailscale app, the tailscale CLI is available as part of the mounted qpkg package. You can access the QNAP terminal and run CLI commands using SSH.

You can find the mounted package path using this command:

# print the package path:
echo $(getcfg SHARE_DEF defVolMP -f /etc/config/def_share.info)/.qpkg/Tailscale/
# run the tailscale CLI:
$(getcfg SHARE_DEF defVolMP -f /etc/config/def_share.info)/.qpkg/Tailscale/tailscale ...

For convenience, you can add the package path to your $PATH environment variable. This lets you run tailscale commands without the full path:

export PATH=$PATH:$(getcfg SHARE_DEF defVolMP -f /etc/config/def_share.info)/.qpkg/Tailscale/
tailscale ...

Special thanks

Special thanks to ivokub, who has contributed a community-maintained Tailscale QPKG package builder.