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tvOS 17 has VPN support. How to use Tailscale to VPN to a Vulture server and watch geo restricted streaming services directly on your Apple TV

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    Jac Timms
    Twitter

tvOS adding VPN support is a big deal for those of us that want a hassle-free connection to geo-restricted streaming services. You can't use BBC iPlayer from outside the UK, for example, and they also block a lot of IP ranges, such as that of Digital Ocean.

In this guide, I recommend Linode for a basic Linux server on their shared CPU hosts, as their data centres don't seem to have their IPs blocked by the streaming services I use yet, at least at the time of writing. The cost of one of these is $5/month (at time of writing).

I won't talk you through this, as there are a bunch of good guides, including from Linode themselves. So I will assume you have the Linux host ready in a data centre in a country you want your traffic to appear to come from, and are logged in via ssh.

  1. Create a free account on Tailscale.com.
  2. Install Tailscale via this guide.
  3. Set the Tailscale instance to be an Exit Node.
  4. On your Apple TV go to Settings > Systems > Software Updates and check if you have tvOS 17 already (on the left). If you do, skip this step, if not, hit Update Software. If it says you are already up to date, enable Beta Updates and then try again. It should offer you tvOS 17 and take about 20 minutes to update.
tvos
  1. At the time of writing, Tailscale for macOS is in Beta, so you have to install the Testflight app on the Apple TV via the tvOS App Store, then grab the Testflight beta app.
  2. Once Tailscale for tvOS is installed it will ask you to login via a QR code you can use on your phone.
  3. Now you are logged into Tailscale, select your Exit Node you installed earlier and enable it.
tvos2
  1. Go to your geo-restricted streaming app, for example, BBC iPlayer and try it out.
  2. Enjoy!