u/redgroupclan

I'm trying to use Tailscale in conjunction with Adguard to get ad blocking on all my devices, even outside of my home network. The other devices show up in my Adguard query log with their Tailscale IPs, but my phone does not show up whatsoever. I can ping the Tailscale IP and nslookup its domain, but if I run "tailscale status" on the host computer running Adguard and Tailscale, the phone has no status. Furthermore, my phone says "connected without Internet" when connected to my home Wifi, and overall the connectivity seems to be slow/unresponsive at times, even outside the network.

Here is how I configured my phone. I went to my home network settings, changed DHCP to Static, the gateway is my router IP, and DNS 1 is set to the Tailscale IP of my Adguard host device. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the IP address so I just left it as whatever was there when I changed the setting to Static.

Soooo, what am I not understanding here? Is it something about how I'm not sure what to do about the IP address?

First burger: chili, onions, Fritos, crispy onions, American cheese, and two beef patties on a homemade hokkaido milk bun. Second burger: ketchup, mayo, pickles, onion slivers, shredded lettuce, heirloom tomato slices, American cheese, and two beef patties on a homemade hokkaido milk bun.

My goal is to use Tailscale to block ads even when I'm outside my home network. To know Tailscale is working in conjunction with my AdGuard server, all the IPs in the AdGuard query log would be "100.x.x.x" Tailscale IP addresses instead of the actual device IP addresses, right? What I'm seeing in the query log is just my devices normal IPs.

My AdGuard Home is installed on Xubuntu Minimal device 192.168.86.78, a static IP address configured in the DHCP of my router. All client devices have had their preferred DNS set to 192.168.86.78, including my router. Tailscale is also installed on every device, barring the router. Under the DNS settings in Tailscale, I added 192.168.86.78 to be the Global Nameserver. Override DNS servers is checked. Then of course there's so many terminal commands I did that I can't keep track of. I was following this tutorial.

I'll include an album of pictures of my configurations, although I'm not sure what all I need to take pictures of. Forgive me for taking pictures of the screen of my Xubuntu device. It has no software loaded on it for screenshots. I'm not sure what information in these screenshots would qualify as stuff I shouldn't let everyone know, so warn me if I left in anything I shouldn't have.

Here is the album. Let me know if there's anything else that would help.

I thought I did everything according to the tutorial. I was only unsure about two things: the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs in "Connecting to AdGuard Home" section where I wasn't sure if he was repeating himself or saying to add two different IPs (I added one). The other thing I wasn't sure about was him talking about is the "Use Tailscale DNS" option. I see that on the mobile app on my phone, but not on the desktop web console so I'm not sure where to find it to enable on my Xubuntu device.

Any help? What am I missing?

Homemade hokkaido milk buns, heirloom tomato slices, bacon, American cheese, onion (raw and grilled), lettuce, pickles, mayo, and ketchup. One normal sized burger, one wide, hefty burger

My journey is finally complete! Or at least, this part is. I've completed the A+, Network+, and Security+ exams. I thought I'd take the time to answer some questions I had when I was preparing to take the exams.

What did I use to study?

All I used was Professor Messers content. I would watch the videos and type the notes from the slides into my own study doc. Once the video course was complete, I would read over the entire study doc once. Then I would do Professor Messers' practice exams, except for Network+ because he STILL doesn't have an exam for that (for Net+ I had to settle for just the study groups). I would review the study doc after seeing which answers I got wrong, then do the exams again until my scores were at least 85%. I would incorporate flash cards for my weak areas. Then I would rush through the study group videos, playing at 2x speed and skipping to the questions and answers, making sure I was getting most of them right. At that point, I would schedule my exams. I would arrive at the exam facility 2-3 hours early and just sit there reading over my entire study doc again and looking at my flash cards.

That being said, I found Professor Messers content to be the very bare minimum of study coverage, or less. Like, if you have some tech common sense, his content will just barely get you over the finish line. If you don't have some tech common sense, you'll need more than just Professor Messer. Each exam, especially on my first A+ exam, I would immediately be hit in the face with the feeling of "oh crap, I was not prepared for this, I'm going to fail". Then I'd get by somehow! One thing I will say is that Professor Messer doesn't really prepare you for the PBQs at all. His practice exams are limited by their medium of being PDFs and the PBQs are a lot more interactive than a PDF can provide. Messer's "PBQs" are really just thickly veiled multiple choice questions. Still grateful for his content though!

How long did I study for each exam?

One month for each exam. I dillydallied a bit after finishing A+, but generally I did one exam a month. I'd give myself a one week break after each exam to rest before letting studying consume my life again.

Which exam was the hardest?

I mean, based on score, the Security+ exam was apparently the hardest, but I felt more confident about that one that the Network+ exam. I swear Sec+ must have less forgiving grading because the content is easier. A+ had the most involved studying (for a lot of things that didn't even appear on the exam *coughcough*PORTS) but apparently I did pretty well so they're not that bad I guess. Security+, both the study content and exam in general, seemed easier because it's a lot of broad concepts and common sense. Not a bunch of technical stuff that needs wrote memorization. It was the only exam I didn't make flash cards for. Network+ was the exam I found to be the hardest, because it required not just wrote memorization on things like ports, but there's the whole subnetting fiasco that everyone dreads.

The funny thing is I studied subnetting entirely from the perspective of they're going to make me do those calculations where I have to calculate the broadcast address, first network address, etc etc from Messer's seven second subnetting video. I devoted all of my subnet studying into that and memorized the entire subnetting chart so I could vomit it out on the provided scratch paper before I could forget it. And then...that kind of subnetting calculation did not appear on the exam at all. There were 7 subnetting questions and they were all "how many devices can a network support based on this starting address" or "what's the CIDR notation for this" or whatever, which I did not study AT ALL. Hopefully the multiple choice saved me a bit. The cherry on top was the first PBQ I got, I swear was glitched, because there was no way to actually input an answer. The commands I was allowed to use weren't the kind of commands that change anything like the question wanted.

Did I feel prepared for the exams?

I felt prepared right up until the exams started! Then I felt like I was out of my depth and I was passing by the seat of my pants each time. You can never really prepare for the smack in the face CompTIA will give you.

Did I have to do any retakes?

No, I passed on my first try every time. I still bought the retake assurance every time until the Sec+ exam because the Sec+ content seemed so easy. Then I barely passed Sec+! That was close. I used Professor Messer's voucher discounts to sort of pay for the retake assurance (except for when I didn't know his vouchers existed yet so I paid full price...)

Anyway, that's all! This 4-month journey is finally over! Now I plan to move on to homelabbing for a bit, hopefully get a job (terrible market not withstanding), and then go for AWS, Azure, and finally CCNA. Hopefully I shed some insight on things some of you exam-hopefuls were wondering.

Taken in Belton. I don't know if I've ever seen a storm look so menacing. Funny that it proceeded to be a run-of-the-mill thunderstorm that lasted 15 minutes after the meteorologists interrupted the World Cup to warn us that were going to get 80mph winds.