Auto-Update

The manager auto-updates the Tailscale binary on a schedule. Management files are manual-only and upgrade through self-update.

Tailscale Binary Auto-Update

When enabled, a daily cron job checks for and installs new Tailscale releases. This only affects the Tailscale binary, never the manager itself.

Enable / Disable

tailscale-manager auto-update enable   # Enable
tailscale-manager auto-update disable  # Disable
tailscale-manager auto-update status   # Check status

(The older on / off / 1 / 0 values are still accepted.)

How It Works

1. A cron job runs /usr/bin/tailscale-update daily
2. It checks for the latest version from the configured download source
3. If a newer version is found, it downloads and installs it
4. The Tailscale service is restarted after update

Management-Layer Self-Update

self-update reinstalls the management layer in one step from the versioned snapshot on GitHub: the manager script, the library modules, and the init/cron scripts. LuCI files are refreshed on devices where the LuCI UI is installed or luci_enabled=1 is set in UCI. Your settings (UCI config), the Tailscale state, and the installed binary are left untouched.

tailscale-manager self-update

It checks the remote version first. If a newer version is available it reinstalls everything and re-executes into the new code; if you are already on the latest version it does nothing. Because the management files are stateless and always fetched as one consistent set, a re-run is always safe (it also repairs missing or corrupted runtime files), so there is no separate "sync scripts" step.

Update Reminder

The management layer never upgrades itself silently. You are reminded that an update is available in two read-only places:

• The interactive menu (tailscale-manager with no arguments) shows a notice at the top and offers an "Update Management Scripts" entry.
• The LuCI Maintenance page has a "Check for Updates" button.

Plain subcommands (status, update, etc.) stay fully offline and never trigger a network check.