Quickstart: your first network

In this guide you create a nixscale account from scratch, set up your first network, connect two computers and allow traffic between them. It takes about 15 minutes.

Create your account

1. Sign up

   On the nixscale home page, click Sign up, then Create a free account on the next page, and fill in the form.

2. Verify your email

   Click the link in the verification email sent to your address. You can't create a network until your email address is verified.

3. Open the panel

   When you sign in, the panel opens. nixscale creates an organization for you and makes you its owner — there's nothing to set up.

Create your first network

In the panel, type a name in the Network name field on your organization card (your company name, for example) and click Create network.

The network page opens with the Your network is being provisioned screen while your dedicated control server is set up. This usually takes a few minutes, and the page refreshes by itself when it's ready.

Connect two devices

Follow these steps for each device separately:

1. Install Tailscale

   Install the official Tailscale client on the device: Install Tailscale.

2. Create a key

   On the network page, in Devices, click Add device, then Create key, and copy the command with Copy command.

3. Run the command on the device

   Run the command in the device's Terminal or PowerShell (on Linux, put sudo in front of it). Details: Connect your device.

Once both devices are connected, click Refresh. Both should show as Online.

Allow the devices to talk

In nixscale, no traffic is allowed by default — two devices on the same network still can't reach each other. Both devices are your personal devices, so you'll create a people group that covers them and a rule that allows traffic within that group.

1. Create a people group

   From the network menu, go to Members. Under People groups, type team in the New group field and click Add group. A group name has to start with a lowercase letter, contain only lowercase letters and digits, and be at most 32 characters long.

2. Add yourself to the group

   Click Edit next to the team group, tick yourself in the list and click Save.

3. Add a rule

   Go to Rules and click Add rule. Fill in the form like this and click Add:

   Field	Value
   Source	team (under 👤 People groups)
   Destination	team
   Protocol	ICMP

4. See the policy applied

   When you save, the panel tells you a new policy version was applied, and the policy badge in the network header updates.

This rule only allows ping traffic. If you add another rule with the same source and destination, choosing TCP as the Protocol and any port as the Port, you also allow all TCP traffic between the devices; the new port is added to the same rule.

Test the connection

On the first device, find the other device's address:

tailscale status

You should see the second device and its address, which starts with 100.. Ping that address:

ping 100.112.0.2

Replace the highlighted address with your own device's address. If replies come back, your two devices are talking end-to-end encrypted through nixscale. On macOS and Linux, stop ping with Ctrl + C.

What's next

• Invite your teammates. Send invites from the People tab on the organization page; each person you invite gets an invite email. They must sign up with the address the invite was sent to and verify it, otherwise the invite won't appear in the panel. After they accept, pick them in the Add member section of the network page and click Add to network to add them to the network; they get an email explaining how to connect their device.
• Send your teammates the guide. People connecting their own computer can start at Install Tailscale.