Windows Firewall Blocks Access to Web Servers Over Tailscale
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MellowCedar47
I'm running Tailscale on a Windows 11 Pro machine and can't reach the web servers hosted on that device through the Tailscale network. I've tried creating inbound rules for the relevant IP range and individual ports, and I've also allowed Tailscale through Windows Firewall. The services become reachable immediately when I disable the firewall, so the firewall appears to be blocking the traffic. What firewall settings or network profile details should I check?
Answers
Check which network profile Windows assigned to the Tailscale adapter. If it’s classified as Public while your rules only apply to Private or Domain networks, those rules won’t take effect. Make sure the adapter and your inbound rules use the appropriate profiles—testing with all three profiles enabled can help confirm whether that’s the issue. Also verify the rules are actually inbound rather than outbound.
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Review Tailscale’s required firewall ports and explicitly allow the relevant traffic. If you’re unsure about rules that use wildcards for the source or destination, they generally mean allowing any address or port where appropriate, but the rule still needs to match the correct protocol and direction.
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MellowCedar47: I’ve already allowed the Tailscale ports, the IP range, and the individual service ports. I’m mainly unsure how the wildcard source and destination fields should be interpreted in the UDP rule.