NEW: DVR Server + Tailscale integration, for easier Away from Home access (Experimental)

Tailscale works great but as others have noted or discovered, performance is pretty poor. You lose a lot of thoroughput running over the Tailscale VPN connection unfortunately. I have to reduce my stream quality to 1Mbps (ugh) to be reliable when streaming this way otherwise the buffering and stopping/skipping is too onerous. I have found that performance in general on Tailscale is not very good - even when a "direct" or "hairpin" on the same router but a different interface etc. It just takes a huge performance hit no matter what you do, and that sucks, but at least it works. I don't do the remote streaming this way very often, but it does work when needed, even if the quality is sub-optimal at 1Mbps streams.

To put in perspective, on the same physical ethernet interface, gigabit transfer with no TS VPN. Once Tailscale is used, the max performance drops for me to around 170 megabits. That is a heck of a drop. Once it goes to a different interface it drops to only 1-2 (!) megabit of performance effectively. It's pretty terrible. Obviously this isn't the Channels developers fault and I appreciate the Tailscale stuff for simplicity and ease of use but it is most certainly NOT a performance VPN solution by any stretch of the imagination. Eventually I will probably setup a dedicated Wireguard direct site-to-site VPN and just connect a travel router on the other side when needed, as Wireguard native performance is substantially superior in all aspects.

Tailscale uses Wireguard. Are these performance numbers using the native Tailscale server and client, or using our embedded versions?

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I'm using the native TailScale server and client; I have not enabled nor used the built-in experimental TailScale stuff in Channels DVR. Though I wouldn't expect performance to be dramatically different in either scenario. TailScale suffers from a large performance problem in general due to the Wireguard Go! implementation (as opposed to having native kernel driver access) which greatly limits and reduces the overall thoroughput of the VPN possible.

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I have been using Tailscale with my Qnap Server and Tivo Stream 4K for quite a while. I have traveled to Prince Edward Island in Canada and Nova Scotia using Starlink and LTE via a ConnectT 2.0 in the states. I also traveled to Iowa using LTE only. I have a cheap Spectrum 300M down 10M up internet at home. I use 3M on my main TV and 2M on my bedroom which always seems to drop to 1M. The Main TV is nearly perfect on HD. The bedroom is very good and I can always move the stream speed up if needed. I have no signal drops and can watch anything. I have seen locations where LTE isn't good. I do not have 5G. But StarLink is always perfect. I would suggest you check your router/modem. FYI, I am not using the developer's integration since I need to reach my server for security cams, WX station and Smartlink hub. Hope you get it going. It is truly a great thing for RV-er's.

Yes I get that same rate around 7-9Mbps on some TailScale clients but other times it is lucky to sustain 2-3 megs. So typically I set a default 1Mbps stream rate on all devices and scale up from there as the connection permits. Honestly on a lot of screens 1Mbps works just fine, I don't need high quality.

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Would this work for self hosted Headscale servers with Tailscale clients?

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Not at this time.

Any chance the Magicdns device name can be displayed (now that it's generally available) so I can see which node I'm connected to, or maybe widen the display field so the tail IP 100.100.100.XXX fully displays?

Thank you! This solves some issues with Tailscale that I had been experiencing behind the T-Mobile Home network.

My previous workaround was to use the Channels server as an exit node, which was clumsy and slow at times. This is so much better!

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I'm behind the dumbed down T-Mobile can. Tailscale is on and configured in Channels DVR. I also have Tailscale on my phone (S20 Android) with the same account as I have with Channels. Tailscale lists dvr-synologyds220 with an IP address. I try to connect At Home from the phone app and get the following message: A Channels DVR server was not found at IP x.x.x.x.I tried the IP of the NAS server itself. No luck. Tailscale also lists synologyds220 with an IP. Tried that too. No luck. I even tried putting the port number :8089 after the IPs. No luck.

I've tried this both on WiFi when not at home and on cell only when at home. I keep getting the same error message. I've read here that others with T-Mobile home internet got it working. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Diagnostics submitted 9:10am CST.

Got it working. I had Tailscale running on the Synology. Stopped it. Tried again on phone and it connected.

Something must be different with your setup.
I'm able to have my Synology Tailscale package running and Channels DVR Tailscale enabled and access either of them. Connecting to the Channels DVR Tailscale IP I don't add the port :8089. Connecting to the Synology Tailscale IP I have to add the port :8089.
I'm able to switch back and forth between them.

iPhone with latest Channels for iOS beta (11.10.2046)
All Tailscale versions are 1.32

So I uninstalled Tailscale on the Synology. Reinstalled it and ran. Was able to connect to Channels. Don't know why it wouldn't before but glad it's working now.

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Good to hear you got it working.

Tailscale maintains the Synology packages, but has to submit them to Synology for it to appear in the Synology Package Center, which still has the old version 1.22.2. The latest stable v1.32.2 Synology package is available at tailscale https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/#spks for manual loading.

Thanks. Did the upgrade and it's working fine.

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How to share a device (node) on your tailnet with a user on a different tailscale account (different tailnet)

How often will the built-in tailscale versions be updated?

The built-in version in Channels DVR Server and Channels iOS Client is v1.32.1

The lastest stable release is v1.32.3

I've updated my Synology NAS's and Windows PC to v1.32.3 because of this Security Bulletins · Tailscale

The latest iOS version available is still at v1.32.2 ‎Tailscale on the App Store

App Store just updated to v1.32.3

I'm having a weird issue. I enabled tailscale in the debug menu, signed in, and chose to connect "At Home" with my DVR server's tailscale address. However, whenever I stop using the channels app and then open it up later it defaults back to using the "Away From Home" channels relayed connection. If I chose "At Home" again and put in my DVR server's tailscale IP address it connects back. But it's not able to keep the connection over tailscale between uses.

I'm trying this out on a "test" DVR instance. I already have another DVR instance running on the same account with remote access enabled. On the "test" Tailscale DVR the webui shows that is it constantly trying to request a LetsEncrypt certificate, can this be ignored or is possibly trying to override the existing SSL certificate for my account?