Hi HN,

I’m an indie developer and heavy Tailscale user. I built NovaAccess because I needed reliable SSH access to my tailnet on iOS without breaking other VPNs.

On iOS, the official Tailscale app requires VPN entitlements, which means you can’t run it alongside another VPN. That was a deal-breaker for my workflow. NovaAccess uses libtailscale directly, so it works without requesting VPN permissions and can coexist with any VPN you’re already using.

What NovaAccess does:

Native SSH terminal for tailnet hosts (SwiftTerm, not WebKit)

Auto-discovery of tailnet nodes

SSH key management

Optional support for custom login servers / Headscale

In the latest update (v1.1.0), I focused heavily on terminal UX and reliability:

Reworked terminal core and accessory keyboard

Better session resume after backgrounding

UI redesign to make daily ops faster

There’s also a Pro tier for people managing multiple tailnets or doing heavier ops:

Multi-tailnet switching

In-tailnet server monitoring

Internal web access

SFTP file management

The free tier is fully usable for SSH access.

I built this primarily for myself and am now trying to see if it’s useful to others.

Feedback (especially critical) is very welcome.

App Store link:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/novaaccess-tailnet-tools/id674...

For the Tailscale and SwiftTerm core dependencies we use, we also have the fork OpenSourced on GitHub:

https://github.com/GalaxNet-Ltd/SwiftTerm https://github.com/GalaxNet-Ltd/libtailscale

Show HN: NovaAccess – SSH access to Tailscale tailnet hosts on iOS without VPN