Lightweight Tailscale for 16MB OpenWrt Routers (Runs from RAM)

A heavily optimized, stripped, and UPX-compressed Tailscale ARM64 (�arch64) daemon tailored specifically for flash-constrained OpenWrt routers (such as the Cudy WR3000 v1 with only 16MB flash storage).

Note

100% RAM-Disk Execution: This binary is designed to be downloaded directly into RAM (/tmp) on every boot. Zero bytes are written to your router's permanent flash overlay (/overlay), completely eliminating the risk of flash storage exhaustion or overlay corruption while retaining full Subnet Routing.

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?? Why This Exists

• The Problem: Standard Tailscale installations on OpenWrt require 25MB+ of storage, but a 16MB flash router typically only has 1.5MB - 5.5MB of free overlay space. Installing official packages directly to flash will instantly overflow the partition.
• The Solution:
  1. We strip unnecessary server/cloud bloat (AWS, Kubernetes, Bird, etc.).
  2. We explicitly retain etstack so full Subnet Routing works seamlessly.
  3. We compress the executable with UPX (LZMA) down to ~6 MB.
  4. The router downloads this binary directly into its RAM-Disk (/tmp) on boot, leaving 100% of your router's permanent flash storage untouched.
  5. The authentication state (/etc/tailscale/tailscaled.state) is preserved in flash (<3 KB), so you never have to re-authenticate on reboot!

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?? Direct Download URL for OpenWrt

This direct URL always points to the latest compiled binary: �ash wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ATIK455/tailscale-openwrt/main/tailscale.combined -O /tmp/tailscaled chmod +x /tmp/tailscaled

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?? Router Startup Script (/etc/rc.local)

To make your router automatically download and run Tailscale in RAM on boot, add the following to /etc/rc.local:

`sh ( # 1. Restore OpenWrt default DNS symlink (Prevents MagicDNS deadlock) rm -f /etc/resolv.conf ln -sf /tmp/resolv.conf.d/resolv.conf.auto /etc/resolv.conf

# 2. Wait for internet connection
while true; do
    if ping -c 1 8.8.8.8 >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        logger -t tailscale "Internet is up! Syncing time and starting Tailscale in RAM..."
        
        # 3. Force time sync (Prevents WireGuard timestamp rejections after power loss)
        ntpd -n -q -p 0.openwrt.pool.ntp.org -p time.google.com
        
        # 4. Download directly into RAM (/tmp) and launch Tailscale
        wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ATIK455/tailscale-openwrt/main/tailscale.combined -O /tmp/tailscaled
        if [ -s /tmp/tailscaled ]; then
            chmod +x /tmp/tailscaled
            /tmp/tailscaled --statedir=/etc/tailscale >/dev/null 2>&1 &
            break
        fi
    fi
    sleep 5
done

) >/dev/null 2>&1 &

exit 0 `

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?? How Updates Work

This repository features an automated GitHub Actions Workflow:

1. Automated Schedule: Checks and compiles the latest stable Tailscale release on the 1st of every month automatically.
2. On-Demand (Maintainer / Forks): The repository owner (or anyone who forks this repo) can trigger an on-demand build anytime with 1 click under the Actions tab by selecting Run workflow.
3. The workflow compiles the binary on a GitHub cloud runner, compresses it with UPX, pushes ailscale.combined directly to main, and publishes a formal release under Releases.
4. Any router reboot will automatically fetch the latest build directly into RAM!

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License, matching upstream Tailscale.