Ship policy.hujson (mounted + installed on first deploy, edits preserved) and wire policy.mode=file / policy.path in config.yaml. Translate the Tailscale "grants" default into headscale's legacy "acls" format (self-access, tag:shared, Tailscale SSH), since headscale 0.28 doesn't support grants. Embed in deploy.sh and document `headscale policy check`.
headscale
Headscale — a self-hosted Tailscale control server — behind Caddy, with OIDC login delegated to pocket-id.
Prerequisite
Register an OIDC client in pocket-id's admin UI with redirect URI:
https://${HEADSCALE_DOMAIN}/oidc/callback
Then paste its OIDC_CLIENT_ID / OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET below.
Required .env values
| Variable | Notes |
|---|---|
HEADSCALE_DOMAIN |
Public hostname (e.g. hs.example.com). Clients connect here over HTTPS. |
ACME_EMAIL |
Let's Encrypt registration email. |
TAILNET_DOMAIN |
MagicDNS suffix (e.g. tail.example.com). Must differ from HEADSCALE_DOMAIN. |
POCKETID_DOMAIN |
OIDC issuer hostname (your pocket-id). |
OIDC_CLIENT_ID / OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET |
From the pocket-id client above. |
The deploy substitutes these into config.yaml from the embedded template. See
.env.example.
Deploy
./automations.sh # Deploy on this host → deploy: headscale
Or build + run the self-contained artifact:
./build.sh
scp deploy.sh root@host:
ssh root@host 'bash deploy.sh'
# non-interactive: pass HEADSCALE_DOMAIN, ACME_EMAIL, TAILNET_DOMAIN,
# POCKETID_DOMAIN, OIDC_CLIENT_ID, OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET, SKIP_PROMPTS=1
Unattended provisioning: cloud-init.yml.
DNS for HEADSCALE_DOMAIN must resolve to the host and 80/443 be reachable
before deploy.
ACL policy
A starter ACL ships in policy.hujson (installed to
$STACK_DIR/policy.hujson on first deploy; your edits survive re-deploys).
headscale uses Tailscale's legacy acls format, not the newer grants
syntax from the Tailscale admin console — the bundled policy is that default
translated over (per-user self-access, a tag:shared everyone can reach, and
SSH to your own devices). Some pieces (autogroup:self, the ssh block) are
newer/experimental in headscale; a permissive fallback is included in the file.
$EDITOR /srv/headscale/policy.hujson
headscale policy check # validate (host CLI wrapper)
cd /srv/headscale && docker compose restart headscale # apply