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    "Tailscale is not online" problem

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Tailscale
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    • M
      mcury @chudak
      last edited by

      @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

      --timeout option seems to be broken. Did you get it to work?

      The default is fine, 5s.
      The "Tailscale is not online" issue happens pretty fast, so there is no need for the timeout option as I see it..

      dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • M
        mathwilp1011
        last edited by mathwilp1011

        Hi Guys,

        For anyone interested: here is the script that I used that is working 100%.

        The --timeout 2 is not a flag within the tailscale CLI commands.

        SUBCOMMANDS for Tailscale
        up Connect to Tailscale, logging in if needed
        down Disconnect from Tailscale
        set Change specified preferences
        login Log in to a Tailscale account
        logout Disconnect from Tailscale and expire current node key
        switch Switches to a different Tailscale account
        configure [ALPHA] Configure the host to enable more Tailscale features
        netcheck Print an analysis of local network conditions
        ip Show Tailscale IP addresses
        status Show state of tailscaled and its connections
        ping Ping a host at the Tailscale layer, see how it routed
        nc Connect to a port on a host, connected to stdin/stdout
        ssh SSH to a Tailscale machine
        funnel Serve content and local servers on the internet
        serve Serve content and local servers on your tailnet
        version Print Tailscale version
        web Run a web server for controlling Tailscale
        file Send or receive files
        bugreport Print a shareable identifier to help diagnose issues
        cert Get TLS certs
        lock Manage tailnet lock
        licenses Get open source license information
        exit-node
        update [BETA] Update Tailscale to the latest/different version
        whois Show the machine and user associated with a Tailscale IP (v4 or v6)

        Anyone has comments, please let leave them.

        Note: you must make it executable with chmod +x and I just modified the above script to make it work for my use case. The tailscale node keeps on falling off (exit node unavailable) after either a reboot or it fails after a few days ofd being online. Added error checking display message.

        @cmcdonald, this is still occurring in the 24.03 BETA (latest revision) as you are aware.

        ============
        Script:

        #!/bin/sh

        ALLDEST="tailscaleexternalNODE"

        COUNT=1
        while [ $COUNT -le 2 ]
        do
        for DEST in $ALLDEST
        do
        tailscale ping --c 1 $DEST >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]
        then
        echo "Tailscale is up"
        exit 0
        fi
        done
        if [ $COUNT -le 1 ]
        then
        echo "Tailscale down"
        /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc stop tailscale
        sleep 2
        /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc start tailscale
        sleep 10
        echo "Tailscale is up"
        exit 1
        fi
        COUNT=expr $COUNT + 1
        done

        chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • chudakC
          chudak @mathwilp1011
          last edited by

          @mathwilp1011

          Today TS is again shows Tailscale is not online. Refresh or check the Tailscale status page.

          The scrip says tailscale has been started.

          But in fact TS is down :(

          WTH

          M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • M
            mcury @chudak
            last edited by

            @chudak 4 months later, I think this time frame tell us something.
            Problem should be with tailscale itself, or the other node..

            dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

            chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • chudakC
              chudak @mcury
              last edited by

              @mcury said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

              @chudak 4 months later, I think this time frame tell us something.
              Problem should be with tailscale itself, or the other node..

              Frankly, there is nothing to update and I still did not get to the bottom of it.

              TS sometimes is up and running and very stable for long periods. And then it gets flaky and can't connect.

              I do run "restart_tailscale" script in crontab, so I assume it makes it start.

              But in general, I am puzzled ...

              Any clues?

              M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • M
                mcury @chudak
                last edited by mcury

                @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                But in general, I am puzzled ...

                Any clues?

                Any logs when the problem starts ?
                What happens when you try to ping the other node ?
                What status it shows in the GUI ?

                I have been using that script with the following scenario, which works fine:

                I have a customer that runs multi WAN in their headquarters.
                One of this links is a CGNAT and other is not.

                The branch office connects directly to the primary non CGNAT link (I have opened a port in the firewall for that connection).
                If a link failover happens in the headquarters, sometimes it loses connections to the TS network and that's when the script "fixes" the problem by forcing the headquarter firewall to restart the service but now using the CGNAT link, thus connecting through the TS node and not a directly connection anymore.

                The reverse is also true, I mean, when the primary link which is not CGNAT comes back online.

                dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • chudakC
                  chudak @mcury
                  last edited by

                  @mcury

                  I don't know exactly where to look :(

                  On a high level, only what I see is TS service is green (which is confusing but that's in a different thread and unrelated) and TS connection status is down.

                  My use case is:

                  pfS runs TS
                  iPad runs TS
                  iPhone runs TS
                  Windows 11 VM runs TS

                  So when psF is down, others actually work fine.
                  I even noticed that routes get resolved.

                  M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M
                    mcury @chudak
                    last edited by

                    @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                    TS connection status is down.

                    isn't the script working for that ?
                    script tries to ping and if it fails, it will restart the service.

                    dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                    chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • chudakC
                      chudak @mcury
                      last edited by

                      @mcury said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                      @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                      TS connection status is down.

                      isn't the script working for that ?
                      script tries to ping and if it fails, it will restart the service.

                      That's an interesting part.
                      Yesterday I found TS down

                      I tried to start it manually, and switched Kea DHCP to ISC DHCP and back, removed /tmp/kea4-ctrl-socket.lock and could not make it start.

                      Then today in the morning - everything is up and running normally

                      ??!!

                      M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • M
                        mcury @chudak
                        last edited by

                        @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                        I tried to start it manually, and switched Kea DHCP to ISC DHCP and back, removed /tmp/kea4-ctrl-socket.lock and could not make it start.

                        Then today in the morning - everything is up and running normally

                        ??!!

                        I don't see how one thing could interfere with each other.

                        But, I'm still using ISC-DHCP for that customer.
                        Can't switch to KEA yet...

                        dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                        chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • chudakC
                          chudak @mcury
                          last edited by

                          @mcury said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                          @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                          I tried to start it manually, and switched Kea DHCP to ISC DHCP and back, removed /tmp/kea4-ctrl-socket.lock and could not make it start.

                          Then today in the morning - everything is up and running normally

                          ??!!

                          I don't see how one thing could interfere with each other.

                          But, I'm still using ISC-DHCP for that customer.
                          Can't switch to KEA yet...

                          Do you know by chance how to catch related to TS stop/start errors/warnings in the logs?

                          M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • M
                            mcury @chudak
                            last edited by

                            @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                            Do you know by chance how to catch related to TS stop/start errors/warnings in the logs?

                            You can search old system logs in /var/log directory if I'm not mistaken. Shouldn't be hard to find it, I mean, if problem started yesterday at 15:00hrs, so there you go.

                            dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • chudakC
                              chudak
                              last edited by

                              TS in conjunction with pfS instability is really frustrating
                              I’m travelling now and TS is simply down with the error:

                              Error executing command (/usr/local/bin/tailscale status)

                              Health check:

                              - not logged in, last login error=invalid key: API key does not exist

                              unexpected state: NoState

                              So far nothing I’ve done, rebooting, deleting a lock file, nothing helped.

                              Thx G.. I still have OpenVPN as a backup option.
                              I’m surprised no one else is complaining about this…

                              M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • M
                                mcury @chudak
                                last edited by mcury

                                @chudak did you create the key at the tailscale's console and then imported it to pfsense ?
                                also, set the key to do not expire.

                                dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                                chudakC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • chudakC
                                  chudak @mcury
                                  last edited by

                                  @mcury said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                                  @chudak did you create the key at the tailscale's console and then imported it to pfsense ?
                                  also, set the key to do not expire.

                                  I did set my key to not expire.
                                  I have used the original key with pfS and did not regenerate it
                                  And have seen it’s working normally after this error.
                                  So suspecting it’s unrelated

                                  I’m hesitant to mess up with keys now as it used to work literally two days ago.

                                  M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • M
                                    mcury @chudak
                                    last edited by

                                    @chudak said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                                    @mcury said in "Tailscale is not online" problem:

                                    @chudak did you create the key at the tailscale's console and then imported it to pfsense ?
                                    also, set the key to do not expire.

                                    I did set my key to not expire.
                                    I have used the original key with pfS and did not regenerate it
                                    And have seen it’s working normally after this error.
                                    So suspecting it’s unrelated

                                    I’m hesitant to mess up with keys now as it used to work literally two days ago.

                                    Ok, if the problem happens again, try to create a key, import it, and then set it to "don't expire".

                                    dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

                                    M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • M
                                      mcury @mcury
                                      last edited by mcury

                                      I want to improve the script above to make it "force" direct connections.

                                      Another issue with this script is that its pinging only once and if that ping fails, it stops and then starts the service.

                                      I think it would be much better if the script pings 10 times, and if 10 out of 10 fails, it will restart the service.
                                      This would increase the reliability of the script and also in the same time, make connections leave the relay and connect directly.

                                      But I'm failing to do so, any ideas to improve the code with the insights above in mind ?

                                      Edit:

                                      I think I got it..

                                      1- It will ping "headquarters" 10 times using tailscale.
                                      This will help connections through tailscale prefer "direct" instead of relay.
                                      2- If at least one of the tailscale ping works, it won't do anything.
                                      This will avoid the service to being brought down every time.
                                      3- If all pings fails, it will restart the tailscale service.

                                      #!/bin/sh
                                      
                                      DEST="headquarters"
                                      SUCCESS=0
                                      COUNT=0
                                      
                                      while [ $COUNT -le 9 ]
                                      do
                                              for DEST in $DEST
                                              do
                                                      COUNT=`expr $COUNT + 1`
                                                      tailscale ping --c 1 -timeout 1s $DEST >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
                                      #                ping -c 1 -t 100 $DEST
                                              if [ $? -eq 0 ]
                                                      then
                                                      SUCCESS=`expr $SUCCESS + 1`
                                              fi
                                              done
                                      done
                                      if [ $SUCCESS -ge 1 ] && [ $COUNT -eq 10 ]
                                              then
                                              exit 0
                                      else
                                                      /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc stop tailscale
                                                      sleep 5
                                                      /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc start tailscale
                                                      sleep 5
                                              exit 1
                                      fi
                                      done
                                      

                                      One important observation is, if there are more peers in the tailscale network, you can and should add them to this script.
                                      See, if you are only pinging one host, if that host goes down, the script will take the entire tailscale service down affecting other hosts.

                                      Code for multiple hosts

                                      #!/bin/sh
                                      
                                      DEST="server-1"
                                      DEST1="server-2"
                                      DEST2="servier-3"
                                      SUCCESS=0
                                      COUNT=0
                                      
                                      while [ $COUNT -le 9 ]
                                      do
                                              for DEST in $DEST
                                              do
                                                      COUNT=`expr $COUNT + 1`
                                                      tailscale ping --c 1 --timeout 1s $DEST >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
                                      #               ping -c 1 -t 100 $DEST
                                              if [ $? -eq 0 ]
                                                      then
                                                      SUCCESS=`expr $SUCCESS + 1`
                                              fi
                                                      tailscale ping --c 1 --timeout 1s $DEST1 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
                                      #               ping -c 1 -t 100 $DEST1
                                              if [ $? -eq 0 ]
                                                      then
                                                      SUCCESS=`expr $SUCCESS + 1`
                                              fi
                                                      tailscale ping --c 1 --timeout 1s $DEST2 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
                                      #               ping -c 1 -t 100 $DEST2
                                              if [ $? -eq 0 ]
                                                      then
                                                      SUCCESS=`expr $SUCCESS + 1`
                                              fi
                                              done
                                      done
                                      if [ $SUCCESS -ge 1 ] && [ $COUNT -eq 10 ]
                                              then
                                              exit 0
                                      else
                                                      /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc stop tailscale
                                                      sleep 5
                                                      /usr/local/sbin/pfSsh.php playback svc start tailscale
                                                      sleep 5
                                              exit 1
                                      fi
                                      done
                                      

                                      The code above will sum SUCCESS variable, and if any of the hosts answers, tailscale service will be considered to be UP and no actions will be taken.

                                      dead on arrival, nowhere to be found.

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