tailscaled.service is masked, unable to start service (and therefore unable to connect to tailnet)

[mboreilly]

I am unable to complete the install of Tailscale for UDM, or more realistically, get taiilscale running on a UDM. I tried reboot the UDM (full power cycle) to try to the old adage of "have you tried turning it off and back on again?" Any help is appreciated.

Upon install, I am seeing the following error:
Failed to restart tailscaled.service: Unit tailscaled.service is masked.

UDM info:
root@3815-E-Winray-Dr-new:~# /usr/bin/ubnt-device-info firmware_detail
3.1.16

Console info:
root@3815-E-Winray-Dr-new:~# curl -sSLq https://raw.github.com/SierraSoftworks/tailscale-udm/main/install.sh | sh
Installing latest Tailscale package repository key...
Warning: apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d instead (see apt-key(8)).
OK
Installing Tailscale package repository...

Tailscale packages for debian bullseye

deb https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/debian bullseye main
Updating package lists...
Hit:1 https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye InRelease
Hit:2 https://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security InRelease
Hit:3 https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates InRelease
Hit:4 https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports InRelease
Get:5 https://apt.artifacts.ui.com bullseye InRelease [13.0 kB]
Get:6 https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/debian bullseye InRelease
Get:7 https://apt.artifacts.ui.com bullseye/release arm64 Packages [40.8 kB]
Fetched 60.3 kB in 1s (43.0 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
58 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
Installing Tailscale 1.54.1...
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
tailscale
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 59 not upgraded.
Need to get 24.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 46.0 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 https://pkgs.tailscale.com/stable/debian bullseye/main arm64 tailscale arm64 1.54.1 [24.4 MB]
Fetched 24.4 MB in 1s (19.8 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package tailscale.
(Reading database ... 46360 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../tailscale_1.54.1_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking tailscale (1.54.1) ...
Setting up tailscale (1.54.1) ...
Failed to preset unit: Unit file /etc/systemd/system/tailscaled.service is masked.
/usr/bin/deb-systemd-helper: error: systemctl preset failed on tailscaled.service: No such file or directory
tailscaled.service is a disabled or a static unit not running, not starting it.
Configuring Tailscale to use userspace networking...
Restarting Tailscale daemon to detect new configuration...
Failed to restart tailscaled.service: Unit tailscaled.service is masked.
Failed to restart Tailscale daemon
The daemon might not be running with userspace networking enabled, you can restart it manually using 'systemctl restart tailscaled'.

root@3815-E-Winray-Dr-new:~# systemctl restart tailscaled
Failed to restart tailscaled.service: Unit tailscaled.service is masked.

[notheotherben]

Hi there, it's surprising to hear that your tailscaled.service unit is in a masked state - that's not something this repository will do and it's not something I imagine that Tailscale itself is doing either. In general masking of units would be done with systemctl mask tailscaled.service (and similarly, you can unmask with systemctl unmask tailscaled.service to get this working again).

That said, it would be interesting to understand if you've installed any other software on your UDM which might cause the tailscale service to be masked (essentially a stronger form of disabling it).

[ianhyzy]

I also have this issue; I removed this previously and am now trying to re-install. I haven't installed other software on the UDM

[Threnklyn]

follow the manual removal steps https://github.com/SierraSoftworks/tailscale-udm?tab=readme-ov-file#manual-steps
and also delete /etc/systemd/system/tailscale*
than clean install with the script. For me this worked