Since Tailscale was founded in 2019, customers have been forced to choose between either Tailscale or Mullvad without the ability for them to co-exist.
Today we announce a partnership with Tailscale that allows you to use both in conjunction through the Tailscale app. This functionality is not available through the Mullvad VPN app.
This partnership allows customers of Tailscale to make use of our WireGuard VPN servers as “exit nodes”. This means that whilst connected to Tailscale, you can access your devices across Tailscale’s mesh network, whilst still connecting outbound through Mullvad VPN WireGuard servers in any location.
Quoting Tailscale :
Tailscale has partnered with Mullvad to make its global network of VPN servers available for our customers. You can now easily browse the web using any one of Mullvad’s available servers as a Tailscale exit node while maintaining the user privacy that’s synonymous with Mullvad.
Mullvad is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service that’s known for its strong commitment to user privacy, anonymity, and security. It safeguards user privacy by not logging or monitoring user activity, and it uses a unique account number system for subscriptions, meaning personal data is not tied to your account. Services like Mullvad help you browse the internet more privately.
I’m a want to be future self hoster so forgive my ignorance. Does this mean that I can connect to my home server while out and also have VPN protection through a phone with only a single VPN slot where as before this was not possible?
Yes, so you’ll connect through TS which will allow you to access whatever you need through the TS connection, but the exit node of the connection will go through Mullvad. All through a single VPN slot. You can actually do this with most VPNs if you configure a manual exit node (I tested this with IVPN)—but this seems to be a much tighter integration.
nothing much to add here except to say that this is awesome !
as coincidence would have it, just yesterday i was thinking about separating Tailscale activity to a separate mobile device so i wouldn’t have to keep juggling between Proton VPN and Tailscale on one mobile device… that’s not very secure with all the background data going through raw while Tailscale is active lol
That is super cool! What I used to be doing until now is have a Raspberry Pi on my network act as a Tailscale exit node which was in turn connected to the internet via Mullvad. So, then I could use it as a Tailscale exit node on my Android phone and connect to the internet using Mullvad while at the same time being able to connect to my Tailnet devices.
If I understand this correctly, I can now just pick a Mullvad VPN server through the Tailscale app to act as a Tailscale exit node effectively eliminating that need to have that Raspberry Pi on my network acting as my own exit node. If that is really how it works it greatly simplifies my setup.
It’s a great news. But last time I checked TailScale (a bunch of time ago) the reason why I didn’t sign-up for it it’s because the only way to login at that time was to login with a Google account… which I don’t have and don’t want.
Is it still the case ? For the ones using TailScale now, how do you like it ?
You can also use GitHub. Make sure to do so using a GitHub organization so you can take advantage of the multiple users if you need so in the future.
For the ones using TailScale now, how do you like it ?
I absolutely love it! It completely eliminated the need for port forwarding on my network and it allows me to even run VPS servers that I can access myself over the internet while themselves are not publicly exposed. For example, I can have a Nextcloud server on a VPS which has all its ports blocked using a firewall but I can still access it through Tailscale. Which massively increases its security compared to having it accessible through a public URL.
By the way, if you are fine with self-hosting you may want to checkout Headscale which is an open-source implementation of the Tailscale control server. You are still using the regular Tailscale client on your devices but instead you configure it to connect to your Headscale instance.
It is not as polished as Tailscale and it lacks a web interface but it gets the job done just fine.
I’m going to have to check this out again sometime soon. The last time I was going to set it up, the iOS Tailscale client still didn’t support custom control servers, but it looks like support was finally added. Of course, then I’d miss out on this cool Mullvad integration which I’m considering
Hey, I tested it, on linux/mac/windows/grapheneos/iphone13mini. For me on all my devices if I use mullvad exit node, after a few mins there’s no more internet, this happens on all my devices while useing mullvad exit node. havent found any topic related to this. Maybe I messed something up in my tailscale account. But if I use my work/home exit nodes, it works just fine, this only happens on mullvad exit nodes. Anyone have the same issue?
