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Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

tailscale.com

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Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#11
post #4
post #2

> is available for all but the most up-to-date Kindles Bought one from eBay to try it out. Silly me connected it to wifi and suddenly it’s up to date and no longer breakable

If you want a cheap rooted eReader I think you're better off getting a Kobo instead, they don't officially support rooting but AFAICT they make basically no effort to prevent it.

Kobo is great. I use Plato and KOReader on mine. They worked better than the original reader software for reading manga.

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#15
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a cheap rooted eReader I think you're better off getting a Kobo instead, they don't officially support rooting but AFAICT they make basically no effort to prevent it.

+1 to a Kobo, they cheaper and better than Kindles, with full Calibre support ( https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre - OSS which has been in development for ~20 years!). The way you install additional software is literally just moving files into folders whilst its plugged into your computer. I'm sure it could handle Tailscale.

I agree with your sentiment that the Kobo is better than the Kindle from an... ethical standpoint, if you have the money for one. However, it is worth noting that Kindles will always be cheaper than Kobo devices [0] due to economies of scale and lockscreen advertisements (removable with jailbreaking). From a pure cost perspective, and assuming the user is technically-minded enough to accomplish the jailbreak, the Kindle is likely always [1] a better deal.

[0] as of today, 12/8/25, the "base model" Kindle 11th Generation is priced at $109.99 USD, and the respective Kobo Clara BW is $139.99 USD.

[1] I say "likely always" to cover my bases. To my knowledge Calibre supports Kindle, just not as well as Kobo. That said I have found that the KOreader app is more than powerful enough for my use case (reading my own epubs, using dictionaries, etc.)

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#16
post #7

You can also run Syncthing on a jailbroken Kindle. That opens up a world of possibilities!

Whoa, now that sounds like the use case I've been looking for since I jailbroke mine.

I have calibre set up to just email books to my Kindle, but that's an extra layer of indirection that I really don't need. I'll have to check that out.

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#17
post #4
post #2

> is available for all but the most up-to-date Kindles Bought one from eBay to try it out. Silly me connected it to wifi and suddenly it’s up to date and no longer breakable

If you want a cheap rooted eReader I think you're better off getting a Kobo instead, they don't officially support rooting but AFAICT they make basically no effort to prevent it.

The only (tiny) issue I've had with Tailscale on Kobo has been that the tailscale daemon prevents me from using the Kobo in Mass Storage Mode while it's active, so I have to disable/quit KOReader to be able to plug it in again, which is admittedly not frequently warranted anyways.

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#18
Oh, this will be very useful. My current solution is incredibly hacky, I run an unauthenticated SSH server on the Kindle (key-based wasn't working), port scan to find it, and SFTP new files. At home, at least, I have a static IP. The whole system falls apart enough that I usually just connect to calibre's remote server and send books that way, though. I wonder what the battery impact of running tailscale on a Kindle is.

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#19
This is pretty interesting write-up*, though I'm not sure my employer would be happy with me putting out EULA-violation instructions to our company homepage.

* - at least for me, as the bugs in the stock reader drive me nuts, and have been waiting for this opportunity for a while

Re: Let's put Tailscale on a jailbroken Kindle

#20
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to a Kobo, they cheaper and better than Kindles, with full Calibre support ( https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre - OSS which has been in development for ~20 years!). The way you install additional software is literally just moving files into folders whilst its plugged into your computer. I'm sure it could handle Tailscale.

I agree with your sentiment that the Kobo is better than the Kindle from an... ethical standpoint, if you have the money for one. However, it is worth noting that Kindles will always be cheaper than Kobo devices [0] due to economies of scale and lockscreen advertisements (removable with jailbreaking). From a pure cost perspective, and assuming the user is technically-minded enough to accomplish the jailbreak, the Kin…

That doesn't always hold, if you want color e-ink then Kobo is currently the cheaper option.

Kindle Colorsoft (7" 16GB) - $250

Kindle Colorsoft (7" 32GB) - $280

Kobo Clara Color (6" 16GB) - $160

Kobo Libra Color (7" 32GB) - $230

The Libra also supports a stylus (sold separately) while the Colorsoft doesn't, that's reserved for the much bigger and pricier Kindle Scribe.

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