Tailscale is the single most useful software to install on a home server. It works like playit.gg, but for your entire server. To install, run the command curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh. Once done, it should say to enter "tailscale up". Type sudo tailscale up --accept-dns=false. The only part needed is the "sudo tailscale up" but the DNS part is because its DNS can conflict with the set DNS. Once the command is run, it will give you a link. copy it and go to your browser. It will make you login or create an account if this is your first time. If its your first time, you will be prompted to add a second device. Add the computer you've been doing this on to start. Follow its steps for your computer by downloading it and finishing the steps. Once you get to the dashboard, you're all set. You should see the name of your Debian server and your PC followed by an IP starting with 100. This one is actually useful. The IP with your Debian machine, is a private IP that only you can use. You can now access anything on your server via that IP even if you're not at home. The catch is that Tailscale is a mesh VPN. And the P in VPN stands for Private. Only the devices you connect can access your server via that IP. It's great if you're the only one using your server, but bad if others want to use it. You could add them to the config, but that would be a hassle and I wouldn't reccomend. Plus, you can't install Tailscale on something like a Roku. For stuff only I will use on my server like SSH and SFTP, I use Tailscale. But for stuff like Jellyfin, Nextcloud, and (for me at least) the Minecraft server, I use port forwarding.
One issue when not at home using Tailscale is accessing the router. Some routers can install Tailscale, but it's easier and better to just do a subnet. With the section about DHCP vs static, you'll see the mention of the subnet mask. I still don't understand the subnet or the mask, but the subnet with Tailscale is really cool. Run the command sudo tailscale set --advertise-routes=192.168.150.0/24 --accept-dns=false --snat-subnet-routes=false. Once run, go to the Tailscale admin console and click the three dots on your Debian server. Check off the 192.168.xxx.0/24 and click save. Now when you're not at home, you should still be able to access LAN. I use this to port forward when not at home as the old way I did it was a graphical virtual machine on Proxmox that I would turn on when I needed to access the router. It was slow and hard to read so this is much better.
Any issues with this guide, shoot me an email "[email protected]"
Date created: August 7th, 2026
Last modified: August 26th, 2026