Inspect Tailscale peers and connection status with tailscale status (human table and JSON)
domain: tailscale.com · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Run `tailscale status` to print a table of the devices in your tailnet: columns are (1) Tailscale IP, (2) machine name (usable with MagicDNS), (3) owner email, (4) device OS, (5) connection status.
Read connection status in column 5: `active; direct <ip:port>` means peer-to-peer over WireGuard; `active; relay <region>` means the connection is relaying through DERP (slower); `idle` means connected but no current traffic; `-` means not connected.
To see your own node's info run `tailscale status` and look for the row tagged `self` (visible with `tailscale status --self` or in the table). Note your client also appears as a peer.
For automation, use machine-readable output: `tailscale status --json` then pipe through jq. Example to count relay servers your peers use: `tailscale status --json | jq -r '.Peer[].Relay | select(.!="")' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr`.
In scripts, guard against accidentally invoking the macOS app instead of the CLI by exporting TAILSCALE_BE_CLI=1.
You can also filter with --active (only peers with active sessions) or --peers=false to hide the peers table.
Known gotchas
The --json output format is explicitly 'subject to change' — do not parse it as a stable API contract.
column-5 'relay' connection does not show your public IP; it shows the DERP region, indicating traffic is not peer-to-peer.
On macOS, `host` and `nslookup` may bypass system DNS and fail on MagicDNS names even though `ping`/`tailscale ping` work.
Buttons/endpoint collection (the newer 'endpoints' view) is separate from the CLI `status` table and is currently in alpha.
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