Establishing direct connection between two endpoints via Tailscale (one device behind an OpenWrt router)

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

My setup:

  • OpenWrt on a GL-iNET MT-6000 (No Tailscale, has public IPv4 address)
  • A synology NAS behind the router (with Tailscale installed)
  • Android phone (with Tailscale installed, should be behind CGNAT as it has private IPv4 address)

The NAS and my phone could not establish a direct connection (so they had to use Tailscale's DERP server as relay, which is very slow). This is fixed by forwarding port 41641/udp on my NAS, as documented in Tailscale's docs.

I think OpenWrt defaults to symmetric NAT, so Tailscale doesn't work OOTB. Tailscale listed firewalls that uses symmetric NAT by default (e.g. pfSense/OPNsense/Fortinet) and their workarounds, but OpenWrt is not on this list.

My question:
Is there a way to enable Tailscale direct connections without using UPnP or port forwarding 41641/udp on OpenWrt?

(This Reddit thread also mentioned that port forwarding is necessary for Tailscale direct connections)

2

No. You need to forward the required port to the relevant device.

1 Like
3

I'm curious if there's a specific reason to not try running Tailscale on the MT6000 directly.

4

It's because I just got the MT-6000. Before that I use a Tp-Link router with stock firmware and Tailscale can connect directly without issue.

5

I am curious: does OpenWrt use symmetric NAT by default? If yes, is there no way to modify this to a more lax version of NAT?

6

What is the issue with forwarding the relevant port?

7

No issue, I forwarded the port already. I am just curious about it

8

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.