How to Install Headscale on Windows 10

Headscale is a self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control plane, intended to be deployed on your own servers. With Headscale, you can create your own private Wireguard network and easily connect to it from any device.

Here's how to install Headscale on Windows 10:

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed:

• Git
• Go
• PowerShell
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Installation Steps

1. Open PowerShell and clone the Headscale repository from GitHub using the following command:

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

2. Change the working directory to the Headscale folder using the following command:

cd headscale

3. Install the required Go packages by running the following command:

go mod tidy

4. Build the Headscale executable by executing the following command:

go build

5. Next, we will install the Headscale service. To do this, open an Ubuntu terminal by running the command wsl in PowerShell. This will open the shell in the Ubuntu environment.

6. Change to the headscale directory using the following command:

cd /mnt/c/Users/UserName/Downloads/headscale

Note: Replace "UserName" with your actual Windows username.

7. Run the following command to install the Headscale service:

sudo ./headscale install

8. Once the installation is complete, start the Headscale service using the following command:

sudo service headscale start

9. Verify that the service is running using the following command:

sudo service headscale status

If the service is running, you should see a message indicating that it is "active (running)."

Conclusion

That's it! You've successfully installed Headscale on Windows 10. Now you can configure your private network and start connecting devices to it.

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