How to Install Tailscale on FreeBSD

Tailscale.com’s download page doesn’t list if it’s available for FreeBSD. But it does work on FreeBSD (tested on Release 14). Here’s how:

• Install the package: pkg install tailscale
• Edit /etc/rc.conf to add tailscaled_enable="YES"
• Run service tailscaled start. If you get an error, reboot.
• After reboot, run tailscale login. Grab the url, copy paste in a browser and approve the connection.
• You can now ssh into the machine from another ’tailscaled’ machine from within your LAN or outside your home/office.

How to update Tailscale

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Once installed, when you run the command tailscale on FreeBSD as root, you get a list of all the commands. Use tailscale update to update.

Key Expiry

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You can choose to disable key expiry via Tailscale portal.

The SSH switch

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Run tailscale like this: tailscale set --ssh for passwordless ssh logins all managed by tailscale. You only need to run this command once. The beauty of this approach is that you can disable ssh altogether on the system by removing ssh startup from rc.conf. It’s actually safer this way. Longread is available here.

Last updated: 04 Jan 2026

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