waybar-tailscale

A super simple module to manage Tailscale on Waybar.

⭐️ What can it do?

• Show Tailscale status and your online and offline devices
• Shows Current version and available updates
• Toggle on/off the VPN
• Show and select an exit node

Installation

Initially, you need to be able to use Tailscale without using sudo. You can do that by executing:

tailscale set --operator=$USER

After, you can clone the repository in your Waybar's configuration folder, or where you prefer.

Configuration

In your waybar config.json add a new module, as shown in the example below.

"custom/tailscale" : {
    "exec": "~/.config/waybar/waybar-tailscale/waybar-tailscale.sh --status 'ipv4'",
    "on-click": "exec ~/.config/waybar/waybar-tailscale/waybar-tailscale.sh --toggle",
    "on-click-right": "exec ~/.config/waybar/waybar-tailscale/waybar-tailscale.sh --select-exit-node",
    "exec-on-event": true,
    "format": "         ",
    // uncomment if you want icons, don't use with tailscale.css
    // "format": "VPN {icon}",
    // "format-icons": {
    //     "connected": "󱠾 󰕥 ",
    //     "stopped": "󱠾  "
    // },
    "tooltip": true,
    "return-type": "json",
    "interval": 1,
},

Important! Be sure to insert the correct path to the script in the exec, on-click, and on-click-right fields. The script is executed every second, but you can easily change it by modifying the interval field.

If you want the tailscale-logo (and not icons) add the next line on top of your waybar style.css (don't use with "format-icons" in waybar config.json)

@import "waybar-tailscale/tailscale.css";

Exit node

The exit-node can be included by changing the format key to:

"format": "VPN: {icon}{text}",

Exit Node Selection

You can use right-click to select an exit node. walker it's currently set to display the exit-node selection box, but you can update MENU_CMD in the script to any of the below based on what you have installed:

walker --dmenu 'Select Exit Node'
wofi --dmenu --prompt 'Select Exit Node'
rofi -dmenu -p 'Select Exit Node'
fuzzel --dmenu --prompt 'Select Exit Node'
dmenu -p 'Select Exit Node'

Colored tooltip

The status flag takes two optional parameters

waybar-tailscale.sh --status "#a6e22e" "#f92672"

The first is the color of active nodes, the second the color of inactive nodes. Defaults are respectively green and red.

Adding IP to the tooltip

By default, no IP address will be shown in the tooltip. If you want to see the ipv4 or ipv6 addresses, pass one of the following arguments to the script:

waybar-tailscale.sh --status "#a6e22e" "#f92672" 'ipv4'

waybar-tailscale.sh --status "#a6e22e" "#f92672" 'ipv6'

waybar-tailscale.sh --status 'ipv6'

Showing the Tailscale version

By default, the tooltip does not show your Tailscale version. If you want to see the installed version and whether it is up to date with the latest release, pass the version argument:

waybar-tailscale.sh --status "#a6e22e" "#f92672" 'ipv4' 'version'

Checking the latest release requires a network request, so the result is cached for VERSION_CHECK_TTL seconds (default 3600, one hour) to avoid hitting the network on every poll. You can change this at the top of waybar-tailscale.sh, or set it to 0 to check on every run instead.

When an update is available, the module also returns an extra update-available class and alt value alongside connected, so you can show a distinct icon for it. If you're using format-icons, add an update-available key as shown in sample-config. If you're using tailscale.css, it already ships with a .update-available rule that tints the icon.

Checking if auto-update is enabled

Tailscale can update itself automatically. To show whether that's enabled on this machine, pass the autoupdate argument:

waybar-tailscale.sh --status "#a6e22e" "#f92672" 'ipv4' 'autoupdate'

If auto-update is explicitly disabled, the module returns an extra auto-update-disabled class and alt value, the same way it does for update-available. If auto-update isn't supported or configured on this machine, the tooltip just says so with no icon change. Add an auto-update-disabled key to format-icons, or use the .auto-update-disabled rule already in tailscale.css, to show a distinct icon.

Contributing

Even if this is a very trivial module, feel free to propose new features and point out any problems!