blumeops/argocd/manifests/tailscale-operator

Tailscale Kubernetes Operator

Manifests for the Tailscale Kubernetes Operator, managed via ArgoCD.

Source

• operator.yaml - Static manifest from https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/tree/main/cmd/k8s-operator/deploy/manifests
• Secret block removed from operator.yaml - managed separately via secret.yaml.tpl
• Image reference changed to fully-qualified docker.io/tailscale/k8s-operator:stable for CRI-O compatibility

Prerequisites

1. OAuth client in Tailscale admin console with:
   • Devices: Core (Read & Write) - tag: tag:k8s-operator
   • Auth Keys: Read & Write
   • Services: Write
2. ACL with tag:k8s-operator owning tag:k8s (so operator can tag resources it creates)

Manual Bootstrap (Before ArgoCD)

Tailscale operator must be deployed before ArgoCD since ArgoCD uses Tailscale for ingress.

# 1. Create namespace
kubectl create namespace tailscale

# 2. Apply OAuth secret (uses 1Password)
op inject -i argocd/manifests/tailscale-operator/secret.yaml.tpl | kubectl apply -f -

# 3. Apply manifests via kustomize
kubectl apply -k argocd/manifests/tailscale-operator/

Ongoing Management (After ArgoCD)

Once ArgoCD is running, the operator is managed by the tailscale-operator ArgoCD Application. ArgoCD pulls manifests from forge and applies them automatically.

ArgoCD CLI Commands

# Check application status
argocd app get tailscale-operator

# Trigger a sync (pull latest from forge and apply)
argocd app sync tailscale-operator

# Preview what would change without applying
argocd app diff tailscale-operator

# View deployment history
argocd app history tailscale-operator

# Hard refresh (clear cache and re-fetch from git)
argocd app get tailscale-operator --hard-refresh

Verification

# Check operator pod is running
kubectl get pods -n tailscale

# Check operator logs
kubectl logs -n tailscale -l app.kubernetes.io/name=operator

Files

File	Description
kustomization.yaml	Kustomize configuration for all manifests
operator.yaml	Operator deployment, CRDs, RBAC (secret removed)
proxyclass.yaml	ProxyClass with fully-qualified images for CRI-O
dnsconfig.yaml	DNSConfig for cluster-to-tailnet name resolution
egress-forge.yaml	Egress proxy for accessing forge on indri
secret.yaml.tpl	1Password template for OAuth credentials (manual)
README.md	This file

Notes

• TODO: The OAuth secret (operator-oauth) is not managed by ArgoCD and must be applied manually. Future improvement: integrate with a secrets operator (e.g., External Secrets).
• Services using the Tailscale LoadBalancer must reference the ProxyClass:

  annotations:
    tailscale.com/proxy-class: "crio-compat"
  

• The egress proxy for forge targets indri.tail8d86e.ts.net directly (not forge.tail8d86e.ts.net) because Tailscale Serve hostnames are virtual and only work via the Tailscale client.