Build from source

!!! warning "Community documentation"

This page is not actively maintained by the headscale authors and is
written by community members. It is _not_ verified by headscale developers.

**It might be outdated and it might miss necessary steps**.

Headscale can be built from source using the latest version of Go and Buf (Protobuf generator). See the Contributing section in the GitHub README for more information.

OpenBSD

Install from source

shell

# Install prerequisites
pkg_add go git

git clone https://github.com/juanfont/headscale.git

cd headscale

# optionally checkout a release
# option a. you can find official release at https://github.com/juanfont/headscale/releases/latest
# option b. get latest tag, this may be a beta release
latestTag=$(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)

git checkout $latestTag

go build -ldflags="-s -w -X github.com/juanfont/headscale/hscontrol/types.Version=$latestTag" -X github.com/juanfont/headscale/hscontrol/types.GitCommitHash=HASH" github.com/juanfont/headscale

# make it executable
chmod a+x headscale

# copy it to /usr/local/sbin
cp headscale /usr/local/sbin

Install from source via cross compile

shell

# Install prerequisites
# 1. go v1.20+: headscale newer than 0.21 needs go 1.20+ to compile
# 2. gmake: Makefile in the headscale repo is written in GNU make syntax

git clone https://github.com/juanfont/headscale.git

cd headscale

# optionally checkout a release
# option a. you can find official release at https://github.com/juanfont/headscale/releases/latest
# option b. get latest tag, this may be a beta release
latestTag=$(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)

git checkout $latestTag

make build GOOS=openbsd

# copy headscale to openbsd machine and put it in /usr/local/sbin