Files
homelab/services/vpn/headscale.nix
darmanandClaude Opus 4.8 0995a5fe2f headscale: move the tailnet to orbit.sol, route all DNS through pihole
Three connected changes, all triggered by the same outage.

base_domain leaves mgaction.town. That zone has a wildcard A+AAAA pointing
at neptun, and DNS wildcards match multi-label names, so
jupiter.hosts.mgaction.town resolved publicly to NEPTUN and Caddy proxied
to itself -- a silent loop rather than a lookup failure. Nesting the
tailnet inside the LAN domain as orbit.sol keeps the theme and resolves
unambiguously, since tailscale matches routes by longest suffix.

override_local_dns = true with pihole as the only global nameserver, so
roaming devices get ad blocking and .sol names off-LAN. With it false,
globalResolvers land in the netmap's FallbackResolvers, which a phone
with carrier DNS never consults. No public fallback is listed on purpose:
tailscale treats the list as a set, so a second entry would let queries
slip past the filter whenever mercury is slow. The cost is that mercury
is now a single point of failure for tailnet DNS.

neptun and mercury opt out individually. mercury would otherwise resolve
through itself. neptun must not depend on a Pi behind a domestic line to
renew the certificates for the control server every other node needs --
and it is circular besides, since tailscaled has to resolve
vpn.mgaction.town to connect at all. Instead neptun runs a dnsmasq stub
forwarding just orbit.sol to MagicDNS on 100.100.100.100, which tailscaled
answers whenever it is running regardless of --accept-dns. That resolves
jupiter live, so the hardcoded /etc/hosts pin is gone.

Also sets dns.nameservers.split explicitly: nixpkgs renders its own
dns.split option one level too high, but headscale reads
dns.nameservers.split (hscontrol/types/config.go:722) and so does
headplane, whose DNS page dies on the missing key with "Cannot convert
undefined or null to object". The module's option is dead as written.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-20 23:01:47 +02:00

124 lines
6.1 KiB
Nix

{ config, ... }:
# Headscale — self-hosted control server for the tailnet. Every host's
# services/vpn/tailscale.nix points --login-server at https://vpn.mgaction.town
# (this host). MagicDNS base_domain "orbit.sol" matches the
# "jupiter.orbit.sol" names used in this repo's Caddy vhosts
# (hosts/neptun/configuration.nix) — changing base_domain means changing
# those too, and re-pointing neptun's dnsmasq stub at the new suffix.
#
# TLS terminates at Caddy (see the host's configuration.nix); headscale
# itself only listens on localhost.
{
services.headscale = {
enable = true;
port = 8082; # off the default 8080 to stay clear of other web apps
settings = {
server_url = "https://vpn.mgaction.town";
dns = {
# Deliberately OUTSIDE mgaction.town. That zone has a wildcard A+AAAA
# pointing at neptun, and DNS wildcards match multi-label names — so
# with base_domain = hosts.mgaction.town, `jupiter.hosts.mgaction.town`
# resolved publicly to NEPTUN and Caddy proxied to itself: a silent
# loop rather than a lookup failure.
#
# `.sol` is the LAN domain pihole serves, so this nests the tailnet
# inside it: planets sit on the LAN as jupiter.sol, and reach each
# other in orbit as jupiter.orbit.sol. Resolution is unambiguous
# because tailscale matches routes by LONGEST suffix, so orbit.sol
# goes to MagicDNS even when everything else funnels to pihole.
#
# Never give a LAN host the name `orbit`: pihole's
# `address=/<host>.sol/<ip>` lines match a name AND everything under
# it, so an `orbit` host would swallow this entire zone.
base_domain = "orbit.sol";
# pihole on mercury, over the tailnet — so every roaming device gets
# ad blocking and .sol names wherever it is, not just on the LAN.
# Deliberately NO public fallback: tailscale treats the list as a set,
# so adding 9.9.9.9 here would let queries slip past the filter
# whenever mercury is briefly slow. Strict blocking, at the cost of
# mercury being a single point of failure for tailnet DNS.
#
# ⚠️ A hardcoded tailnet address, so it changes if mercury re-enrols
# — check `headscale nodes list` if DNS dies tailnet-wide.
nameservers.global = [ "100.64.0.7" ];
# Must be set, and must be HERE rather than via the module's
# `dns.split` option. nixpkgs renders that option one level too high
# (a sibling of `nameservers:`), but headscale reads
# dns.nameservers.split (hscontrol/types/config.go:722) and so does
# headplane. So the module's option is dead, and the missing key makes
# headplane's DNS page die with
# TypeError: Cannot convert undefined or null to object
# from Object.keys(config.dns.nameservers.split).
nameservers.split = { };
# Point every node's resolver at MagicDNS, which forwards on to the
# global nameserver above. That is the only way to get pihole onto a
# roaming device: with this false, globalResolvers land in the
# netmap's FallbackResolvers (hscontrol/types/config.go:826-830) and a
# phone with carrier DNS never consults them.
#
# The cost is that every node's DNS now depends on mercury and on the
# home connection, so mercury going down costs name resolution
# everywhere, not just `.sol`. neptun and mercury opt out of this
# individually with --accept-dns=false — see their configuration.nix.
override_local_dns = true;
};
# Authentik as the login provider, so `tailscale up --login-server ...`
# sends you to a browser instead of needing a pre-auth key. This is a
# SEPARATE Authentik application from headplane's — its own provider,
# slug `headscale`, redirect https://vpn.mgaction.town/oidc/callback
# (headscale's own callback; headplane's is under /admin).
#
# ⚠️ headscale performs OIDC discovery at STARTUP and a failure is
# FATAL ("creating OIDC provider from issuer config: 404 Not Found") —
# it will not boot, taking the whole tailnet's control plane with it.
# Never point `issuer` at an application that doesn't exist yet; verify
# with:
# curl -s <issuer>.well-known/openid-configuration
#
# Headless hosts still enrol with pre-auth keys. Note also that users
# created here are distinct from `headscale users create` ones: matching
# is by the OIDC `sub` claim against the user's providerId, and 0.28
# dropped map_legacy_users, so CLI-made users never gain one.
oidc = {
issuer = "https://auth.mgaction.town/application/o/headscale/";
client_id = "14vhRYaLiONHmI2YFIxbQEveJDLu5cCvzSkTb9oq";
client_secret_path = config.sops.secrets.headscale_oidc_client_secret.path;
};
# Run our own DERP relay instead of pulling Tailscale's map.
#
# With the default (urls = [controlplane.tailscale.com/derpmap/default],
# auto_update_enabled = true) headscale fetches that map at startup and
# treats failure as FATAL — so a DNS blip or a Tailscale outage stops the
# control server from booting at all. A self-hosted control plane that
# can't start without Tailscale's infrastructure rather misses the point.
#
# The relay itself rides Caddy on :443 (hence the flush_interval -1 on
# that vhost); only STUN needs its own UDP port.
derp = {
urls = [ ];
auto_update_enabled = false;
server = {
enabled = true;
region_id = 999; # 900-999 is the custom range
region_code = "neptun";
region_name = "neptun";
stun_listen_addr = "0.0.0.0:3478";
automatically_add_embedded_derp_region = true;
};
};
};
};
# STUN for the embedded DERP server above. Also needs a matching inbound-UDP
# rule in netcup's edge firewall — it is stateless and defaults to denying
# inbound UDP outright, which silently kills every DNS/NTP reply too.
networking.firewall.allowedUDPPorts = [ 3478 ];
}