Headscale: An Open-Source Alternative to Tailscale's Control Server

Headscale is an open-source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server, aiming to provide a self-hosted alternative for self-hosters and hobbyists. It implements a narrow scope, a single Tailscale network (tailnet), suitable for personal use or small open-source organizations. Headscale's goal is to provide self-hosters and hobbyists with an open-source server they can use for their projects and labs. It works as an exchange point of Wireguard public keys for the nodes in the Tailscale network, assigning IP addresses of clients, creating boundaries between users, enabling sharing machines between users, and exposing advertised routes of nodes. Headscale is not associated with Tailscale Inc., but one of its maintainers is employed by Tailscale and contributes to the project. The maintainers work together on setting the direction for the project, serving the community of self-hosters, enthusiasts, and hobbyists while having a sustainable project. To contribute to Headscale, one needs the latest version of Go and Buf, and it is recommended to use Nix for dependency management. The project has adopted linting and style/formatting rules, including Go code linting with golangci-lint and formatting with golines and gofumpt, Proto code linting with buf and formatting with clang-format, and docs formatting with mdformat. The development workflow involves installing development tools, testing and building the program, and running the tests and building the program with Nix or Make directly.