Tailnet

Tailscale host access for Noctalia, built around one core flow: see which hosts are online and copy their IP or name in one gesture — from the launcher or from the panel. Plus connect/disconnect, exit-node management, per-host ping and SSH, Taildrop receive, and a desktop widget. A port of the v4 tailscale plugin to the v5 Luau plugin API.

Community plugin built on top of the Tailscale CLI. Not affiliated with Tailscale Inc.

This is not the only Tailscale plugin in the catalog: davemhammer/tailscale drives the same daemon. Tailnet is host-access first — launcher search, one-gesture copy, per-host ping/SSH, Taildrop receive, a desktop widget — and installing both is fine, they share no ids, state keys or launcher prefix.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	rylos/tailnet
Entries	Bar widget: bar; panel: panel; service: poller; shortcut: toggle; launcher: hosts; desktop widget: desktop
Launcher Prefix	/tn

Requirements

Command	Needed for
tailscale	Everything: status polling, up/down, exit nodes, ping, Taildrop receive.
ssh	The panel's per-peer SSH button (opens ssh <tailscale-ip> in your terminal).
xdg-user-dir	Resolving the default Taildrop download folder when taildrop_dir is empty (xdg-utils).
gio	Opening the daemon's login URL (glib2).
xdg-open	Fallback for opening the login URL when gio is unavailable (xdg-utils).

Only tailscale is required for the core flows; the others are used by the corresponding optional actions. Install tailscale and authenticate the node. For Taildrop receive without a root prompt, grant your user operator rights once:

sudo tailscale set --operator=$USER

Usage

• Launcher (/tn): type /tn <query> to fuzzy-search the tailnet by host name, IP, or OS; activating a result copies the host's Tailscale IP to the clipboard. Type /tn n <query> to copy the host name (the Tailscale short name, the form tailscale ssh/file cp expect) instead. Online hosts rank first.

• Bar widget (bar): add it from the Add-widget picker. Tailscale logo with state badge, online/total peer count, and optionally this node's IP. Left click opens the panel, right click toggles tailscale up/down.

• Panel (panel): connect/disconnect, Taildrop receive, admin console, and refresh in the header; any warning the daemon reports (expiring key, unreachable relay, …); this node's row with copy buttons; a row of preference toggles; a live filter box; then the peer list sorted online-first with status dot, OS icon, last-seen time for offline peers, and per-row buttons: copy IP, copy name, ping, SSH in terminal, and use as exit node (on peers that advertise it). When an exit node is active a banner shows it with a disable button.

  The toggle row drives tailscale set: shields up, accept subnet routes, Tailscale SSH server, advertise as exit node, allow LAN access while using an exit node. A lit button means the flag is on; hover for its name and current state.

  noctalia msg panel-toggle rylos/tailnet:panel
  

• Shortcut (toggle): add it from Settings → Control Center shortcuts. It toggles the Tailscale connection up/down.

• Desktop widget (desktop): add it from the desktop-widgets editor. A compact card with state, this node's IP, online/total peers, and the active exit node.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
poll_interval	int	5	Status refresh interval in seconds (1–60).
hide_mullvad	bool	true	Hide Mullvad exit nodes from the peer lists.
hide_offline	bool	false	Hide offline peers from the panel and launcher.
taildrop_dir	folder	""	Where Taildrop saves received files. Empty = the XDG download folder (advanced).
ssh_username	string	""	Username for the SSH button. Empty = system default (advanced).
tailscale_bin	string	""	Full path to the tailscale command. Empty = look it up on PATH (advanced).
admin_url	string	""	URL opened by the admin button. Empty = the Tailscale admin console (advanced).
show_ip	bool	false	Bar widget: show this node's Tailscale IP.
show_count	bool	true	Bar widget: show the online/total peer count.

IPC

noctalia msg plugin rylos/tailnet:poller all refresh   # force a status refresh
noctalia msg plugin rylos/tailnet:poller all up        # tailscale up
noctalia msg plugin rylos/tailnet:poller all down      # tailscale down
noctalia msg panel-toggle rylos/tailnet:panel

Notes

• Processes: the service polls tailscale status --json and tailscale debug prefs; actions spawn tailscale up|down, tailscale set --exit-node=…, tailscale set --<flag>=true|false for the toggles, tailscale ping -c 3 <ip>, tailscale file get <dir>, and xdg-user-dir DOWNLOAD (to resolve the default Taildrop folder). The login and admin buttons open a URL with gio open (fallback xdg-open); the SSH button runs ssh <tailscale-ip> in your terminal via the shell's run-in-terminal facility — the peer's Tailscale IP, not its name, so it works whether or not MagicDNS is enabled. There is no direct network access from the plugin itself — everything goes through the Tailscale CLI.
• Preferences: tailscale debug prefs is the only way to read the toggle states back, and its output also contains the node's private key. The plugin decodes it in-process, keeps the five booleans it needs, and discards the rest: nothing from that output is logged, stored, or published to the panel.
• Filesystem: Taildrop receive lists the download directory before and after tailscale file get to report exactly which files arrived. Nothing else is written.
• Privacy: host names, IPs, and last-seen times come from your own tailnet via the local CLI and are only shown/copied locally.
• Not ported from v4: Taildrop send (the plugin API has no file picker) and multi-account switching.

Credits

Based on the v4 tailscale plugin. MIT license.