What a Mac mini & Tailscale enables

I’d like to show you how I use Tailscale and a Mac mini in my office to achieve some nifty things.

Tailscale is marketed as a zero-config VPN built on top of WireGuard that securely connects devices and manages firewall rules etc. While all of that might be true, think of it this way: Tailscale allows you to securely connect to a machine at home from anywhere on the internet. This includes your mobile phone, tablet, or laptop.

Tailscale allows you to connect to a machine at home from anywhere on the internet (securely) from your phone/tablet/laptop.

Basic idea

For me, that “machine” is a souped-up Mac mini sitting on an office shelf at home that is never turned off. This Mac mini is the linchpin of my setup, really.

I install¹ Tailscale on this Mac mini and all the other devices I wish to connect from. With the magic of Tailscale ✨, all these devices are now connected like they were on the same network! If that hasn’t sunk in:

I could literally connect to the Homebridge server on my Mac mini in California from an Android phone while traveling in India.

Let’s talk about some services you could run leveraging this setup.

Private blog server

I use the static website generator Hugo (& Henry) for this site.

Hugo has this nifty feature called live reload when you run it on a local machine. If I change any part of my website², it instantly shows me an up-to-date preview. I typically edit my “draft” blog posts like this, so I can see the changes right away. But you don’t run your real website like this³.

Gosh, if only I had a private server that only I could connect to on the internet.

With Tailscale on my Mac mini, I now do.

For the technically curious: I edit files directly on a folder on the mini using VSCode⁴. I then run a hugo server⁵ which watches for changes in this folder. Hugo picks it up and serves a live preview on a private port on the Mac mini. And because this is just a “local” address & port (courtesy Tailscale), I can connect to it from any of my devices.

I’m sipping coffee in hipster cafes editing my site, then clinging on to dear life in a Muni bus, reading that draft on a phone browser. Magical!

FreshRSS (RSS feed) server

RSS is old but remarkable technology. I use it as my throttled way of consuming the internet (blog posts, youtube videos, podcasts, etc.).

I previously used Feedly but then switched to iCloud⁶. But iCloud is dog slow for this. So I spent a few hours one weekend installing FreshRSS on my Mac mini. I now have an open source, super fast RSS service accessible (to me) from anywhere on the internet.

Homebridge

After purchasing a home recently, I set out on a mission to smartify all the things. Lights, doorbells, smart locks, window shades, garages, security cameras, alarm systems, and even the washing machine!

I use a Homebridge server on the Mac mini to connect all these devices. One of the problems though is you can typically only access homebridge from within the same wifi network (which is usually a good thing). But occasionally, I’d love to turn off my light switches or lower the shades as I rush to the airport. Turn on Tailscale, and I can connect to the Homebridge server directly from my phone.

Plex media server

Plex is a media server that allows you to “stream” content from a local disk or hard drive to any network. This includes (massive) family photo albums, high-quality Blu-ray rips⁷ of my favorite movies, audio music that isn’t on Spotify from artists I’ve worked with, etc.

Plex, in theory, allows you to expose this media server to the internet directly (and this is how most people use it). For obvious reasons, I prefer not exposing this server to the internet, even with authentication. Instead, I now connect to this Plex server via Tailscale. I can stream it on my phone and then just Airplay/Google Cast it to a hotel TV.

Tailscale is magical technology. It feels like the iPhone in a VPN world of flip-phones.

I’ll keep updating this post as I come up with more use cases.