kobo-tailscale

Run Tailscale on Kobo e-readers with persistence across reboots.

Supported Devices

• Kobo Libra 2
• Kobo Libra Colour/Color
• Kobo Clara BW
• Kobo Sage

Have another device? Open a PR.

Installation

1. Download this repo to your Kobo's onboard storage at KOBOeReader/kobo-tailscale
2. Connect to your Kobo via SSH or terminal
3. Navigate to your device's directory:

   cd /mnt/onboard/kobo-tailscale/<device>/

   where <device> is libra2, libra-color, clara-bw, or sage
4. Run ./install-tailscale.sh
5. Run tailscale up and authenticate

By default, installs Tailscale v1.90.9. To change the version for all devices, edit the VERSION file at the repository root, or override it with the TAILSCALE_VERSION environment variable.

Upgrading

cd /mnt/onboard/kobo-tailscale/<device>/
./upgrade-tailscale.sh [version]  # Optionally specify version, otherwise uses script default

Replace <device> with your device directory (libra2, libra-color, clara-bw, or sage).

Uninstallation

cd /mnt/onboard/kobo-tailscale/<device>/
./uninstall-tailscale.sh

Replace <device> with your device directory (libra2, libra-color, clara-bw, or sage).

Troubleshooting

DNS breaks after a while? Tailscale overwrites /etc/resolv.conf on systems without a DNS manager. Fix:

tailscale set --accept-dns=false

How It Works

• Tailscale binaries install to /mnt/onboard/tailscale (persistent storage)
• udev rules trigger startup on boot and WiFi events
• Libra 2 includes pre-built TUN kernel module; other devices have it built-in
• iptables binaries from Raspbian 2017-07-05 (matches Kobo's glibc version)

Acknowledgements

• Dylan Staley - Initial Kobo Sage implementation
• jmacindoe - Kernel module compilation documentation
• videah - For the original kobo-tailscale repo this is based on.