Setting Up the VPN on your device
First, we suggest checking to see if you can use IPv6 on your home network. The simplest way to do this is to go to https://www.whatismyip.com/ and see if you get an IPv6 address. If not, continue to follow this guide.
Log in to Tailscale using one of the providers listed here: https://login.tailscale.com/start. Once you have logged in, you will see something like this:
Ensure you have selected the operating system for the device you currently use and not your VPS.
Follow the process of downloading and installing Tailscale on your PC. Once that is complete, head to https://login.tailscale.com/admin/machines and verify that your device is in the Machines list. If it is you can proceed to the next step for Windows or Linux-based VPS.
If it's not, here are some common issues to troubleshoot:
- The browser login link it gave you expired
- You did not login to the Tailscale app
Linux-Based VPS
First, you will need to open an SSH terminal on your server. You can either temporarily use an IPv6 network to SSH in or enable VNC access through our VPS management console. To do this, head over to https://vps.rackgenius.com/ and log in.
Locate and click on your VPS, then select the options tab.
Scroll down until you can see VNC, and click "Enable VNC Access."
Then, you will want to click Browser VNC.
This will open a new window with your server console (if this does not happen, please turn off any ad blockers and allow *.rackgenius.com to show popup windows in your browser settings).
You want to log in with your default user (root) and password. You can find the preset password in the email sent on the server setup, if not just under where you enabled VNC there will be a button to reset your password.
Next, you will copy and paste the following text:
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
If using VNC, you can click the ► to open your menu, click the clipboard icon, paste the text into the text box, and click the paste button.
Once all the text has been entered, click the ◄ arrow to close the menu, then click enter to download and run the Tailscale install script.
After it has been installed, you can then run the following command:
tailscale up
Running tailscale up will return a URL, so you must type this into your device's browser.
Next, verify the details to ensure you connect your VPS and click connect.
You should be redirected to https://login.tailscale.com/admin, where you can look for your VPS on the list.
Next to its name, you will see an IPv4 address; take note of this.
This IPv4 address is private and unique to the server in your "tailnet" group. This means only you and the people in your group can connect to it.
Now, using the IPv4 address you got from Tailscale, open your favorite SSH client or terminal and verify you can SSH into your server.
After you have verified you can successfully connect to the VPS, we suggest disabling VNC by clicking "Disable VNC Access" in the VPS control panel.
Windows-Based VPS
First, you will need to enable VNC so you can access your server temporarily. You can do this by going to the control panel https://vps.rackgenius.com/, locating your VPS then clicking the Options tab.
Scroll until you click the "Enable VNC Access" button. Once VNC has been enabled, click the "Browser VNC" button to open a VNC session in your browser.
When the window opens, you will be greeted by the Windows login screen. To log in, you will need to enter the key combination Ctrl + ALT + Delete. You can do this by clicking the ► tab on the left-hand side of your browser window to open your VNC menu.
Then you will want to click the A and then the three grey squares at the bottom of the list (CTRL+ALT+DEL)
After it opens the password screen, you can paste your password by clicking on the clipboard icon.
Once you are logged in, open the browser of your choice, search for "tail scale download," click the result for https://tailscale.com/download, and click the download button.
Then, run the exe once it has been downloaded. You might get a Microsoft Defender warning, but as long as it's from tailscale.com, you can ignore this.
After installing Tailscale, you will need to log in on your VPS. To do so, click the Show Hidden Icons button at the right of your taskbar.
Click on the Tailscale icon. Your browser will open a login link, but your provider might not support IPv6. To circumvent this, you can copy the URL into your device's browser and authenticate there.
Once you have logged in, verify that your VPS details are correct. Then click "connect." You should be redirected to https://login.tailscale.com/admin/machines, where you can look for your VPS on the list.
Next to its name, you will see an IPv4 address; take note of this.
This IPv4 address is unique to the server in your "tailnet" group, meaning only you and the people in your group can connect.
Now open your RDP app and enter your IP address and user details.
Once you have verified that you can successfully connect to your VPS, we suggest that you disable the VNC by clicking "Disable VNC Access" in the VPS control panel once complete.
