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Skillsjoin-tailnet

join-tailnet

Coding & development

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Updated 10-15 23:48

About this skill

Join Tailnet

Joins an exe.dev VM to the IV Tailscale tailnet.

Usage

Run the helper. It does everything, including attaching and detaching the credential:

~/.agents/skills/join-tailnet/join-tailnet.sh <vm-name>

Then verify the VM appears in tailscale status. After it joins, use ssh <vm> (Tailscale SSH) for everything else.

Why the script, and not the raw commands

api-tailscale (formerly tailscale-api) is attached in two lanes (settled 2026-09-15; the contract lives in iv-provision tailnet.md):

  • Private dev VMs carry a standing grant through the exe.dev tag tailnet, because the browser-driven create-vm skill can only fix things at new time (its token cannot attach or detach). A dev VM is private, so this is the same exposure as the VM itself.
  • Anything internet-facing, and every prod-lane deployment target, gets a time-boxed per-VM grant — ssh exe.dev integrations attach api-tailscale vm:<vm> --for 30m — never the tag. This is what the 2026-07-28 remediation was about: auto:all had put key-minting on the public-facing rss-feed and telnyx-vm (token exchange from rss-feed returned HTTP 200), and the tailnet tag had quietly put it back on them between 2026-08-19 and 2026-09-15. Removed again 2026-09-15 (tag -d <vm> tailnet on the four public VMs).

This script is the third path — a one-off join from the mini for a VM that has neither: it attaches for the duration of the join and detaches after.

This is the control-plane variant: it needs exe.dev access to attach and detach, which a VM does not have. The VM-side variant — for a VM that already carries api-tailscale through the tailnet tag — is iv-provision's skills-local/join-tailnet, which also covers the preflight check and why the vendored tailscale skill's join advice does not apply on this fleet. Same name, different callers; keep them separate rather than syncing one over the other.

The script now:

  1. Checks whether api-tailscale is already attached to the VM. If so, it leaves the attachment exactly as found and skips step 4.
  2. Attaches api-tailscale to vm:<name>.
  3. SSHes in over *.exe.xyz, ensures tailscaled is running, exchanges an OAuth token through the proxy, mints a one-use ephemeral preauthorized key against the public API, and runs tailscale up.
  4. Detaches api-tailscale on exit — via a trap that fires on error and interrupt, not only on success.

So the authority exists only while it is being used. If a detach ever fails the script warns loudly; ssh exe.dev integrations list will show the stray vm: attachment.

Do not hand-run the old inline curl commands. Without an attachment the token exchange returns no access_token, and the natural next move — attaching api-tailscale by hand and forgetting to detach — is exactly the standing authority this change removed.

Prerequisites

  • The VM exists and is reachable at <vm>.exe.xyz.
  • curl and jq are present on the VM (stock exeuntu and iv-image both have them; a slim/exeslim base may not — check before relying on this skill there).
  • tailscaled is enabled and started by the script. Stock exeuntu ships it disabled, so don't assume it is already running.
  • You are running from klundstedt-mini, which owns exe.dev control-plane mutations.

Notes

  • Keys are minted ephemeral:true, so a node that goes offline long enough is removed from the tailnet and must be re-joined by re-running this script. For a long-lived appliance that must survive outages, run with IV_TAILSCALE_EPHEMERAL=false (added 2026-09-15 for the AgentsView collector rebuild): the node then persists, and retiring the VM must delete the node in the admin console (iv-provision retiring.md §5).
  • --tag=iv at VM creation is no longer sufficient or required for tailnet joining. It still governs other tag:iv integrations.
  • Prod-lane images self-join at boot (since exeslim 2026-08-23). The exeslim (not exeslim-dev) image ships iv-tailnet-join.service: at first boot it probes the api-tailscale proxy and, if attached, mints a tag:prod key and joins. api-tailscale is attached to the exe.dev tag tailnet, so new --tag=tailnet on an exeslim VM means it is on the tailnet as tag:prod seconds after boot, and this helper then exits early ("already on the tailnet"). To get tag:dev on such a VM: sudo tailscale logout on it, then run this helper. Seen on iv-llm-relay 2026-09-15.
  • Prod-lane nodes are minted non-ephemeral since exeslim 2026-09-15, so an appliance never needs the API after its first boot; an older ephemeral prod node that gets reaped after a long outage needs a 30-minute attach and systemctl start iv-tailnet-join over the .exe.xyz edge (or this script, which would make it tag:dev).

SSH discipline

  • One SSH attempt at a time. Never launch parallel SSH to *.exe.xyz.
  • If SSH fails, wait 30–60s before one more attempt.