Installing Headscale on OpenBSD

Headscale is a self-hosted WireGuard VPN server designed to be easy to use and deploy on your own infrastructure or cloud servers. In this tutorial, we will walk through the steps for installing Headscale on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before you begin the installation process, ensure that you have the following:

• A server running OpenBSD
• SSH access to the server as the root user
• Basic knowledge of the command line

Step 1: Install WireGuard

The first step is to install WireGuard on your OpenBSD server. To do this, execute the following command in your terminal:

$ pkg_add wireguard-go

This will install WireGuard on your system.

Step 2: Install Go

Next, we need to install Go, which is required to compile and run Headscale. To install Go on OpenBSD, execute the following command:

$ pkg_add go

Once the installation is complete, verify the installation by running the following command:

$ go version

This should output the version of Go installed on your system.

Step 3: Install Headscale

Now that we have WireGuard and Go set up, we can proceed with installing Headscale. Before running the installation script, we need to configure a few environment variables. These variables will be used during the installation process.

Execute the following commands to set the environment variables:

$ export GOPATH=$HOME/go
$ export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$PATH

Next, clone the Headscale repository. Execute the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/juanfont/headscale.git ~/headscale

Now, navigate into the headscale directory and execute the installation script by running the following command:

$ cd ~/headscale
$ make install

This will begin the installation process. Follow the prompts and enter the required information when prompted.

Step 4: Start the Headscale Service

After the installation is complete, start the Headscale service by executing the following command:

$ headscale serve -config ~/headscale/config.hcl

This will start the Headscale service and make it available to use.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Headscale on your OpenBSD server. You can now use it to create and manage your own self-hosted WireGuard VPN server.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!