Running tailscale as a user service

.bashrc

# Add to .bashrc

command -v tailscale >/dev/null && {
  alias tailscale='tailscale --socket=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/tailscale/tailscaled.sock'
  source <(tailscale completion bash)
}

install-tailscale.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Download tailscale and install into .local/bin
# Requires tailscaled.service to already be placed in correct location

tmp=$(mktemp -d)
# TODO: auto download latest version
curl https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/tailscale_1.90.6_amd64.tgz | tar xf -C "$tmp"
tsdir=$(find . -name 'tailscale_*' -type d | head -n1)
cp "$tsdir"/{tailscale,tailscaled} ~/.local/bin/
systemctl --user enable --now tailscaled.service

tailscaled.service

[Unit]
Description=Tailscale node agent -- modified to run as user service
Documentation=https://tailscale.com/kb/
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
# TODO: don't hardcode .local/bin, use $XDG_BIN_HOME
# problem: that's not set on most systems, and systemd env var expansion
# doesn't support default values
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/tailscaled --state=${STATE_DIRECTORY}/tailscaled.state --socket=${RUNTIME_DIRECTORY}/tailscaled.sock -tun=userspace-networking --port=41641
ExecStopPost=%h/.local/bin/tailscaled --cleanup

Restart=on-failure

RuntimeDirectory=tailscale
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0755
StateDirectory=tailscale
StateDirectoryMode=0700
CacheDirectory=tailscale
CacheDirectoryMode=0750
Type=notify

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target