Proxy Tool Fix Reference

Proxy Tool Fix Reference

Detailed instructions for making each proxy tool coexist with Tailscale on macOS.

Contents

• Shadowrocket (macOS ARM)
• Clash / ClashX Pro
• Surge
• NO_PROXY Environment Variable
• General Principles

Shadowrocket (macOS ARM)

The Problem

Shadowrocket's tun-excluded-routes adds a system route 100.64/10 → default gateway (en0) for each excluded CIDR. This route has higher priority (UGSc) than Tailscale's route (UCSI), hijacking all Tailscale traffic.

The Fix

1. Remove 100.64.0.0/10 from tun-excluded-routes in [General]
2. Add a DIRECT rule in [Rule] section:

IP-CIDR,100.64.0.0/10,DIRECT

This lets Tailscale traffic enter the Shadowrocket TUN interface, where the DIRECT rule passes it through without proxying. The system route table remains clean.

Config API

Shadowrocket exposes a config editor API when the Edit Plain Text view is open:

# Read current config
NO_PROXY="<shadowrocket-ip>" curl -s "http://<shadowrocket-ip>:8080/api/read"

# Save updated config (replaces editor buffer)
NO_PROXY="<shadowrocket-ip>" curl -s -X POST "http://<shadowrocket-ip>:8080/api/save" --data-binary @config.txt

Important: The API save only writes to the editor buffer. The user must click Save in the Shadowrocket UI to persist changes. After saving, the VPN connection must be restarted for route changes to take effect.

Example tun-excluded-routes (correct)

tun-excluded-routes = 10.0.0.0/8, 127.0.0.0/8, 169.254.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.0.0.0/24, 192.0.2.0/24, 192.88.99.0/24, 192.168.0.0/16, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, 224.0.0.0/4, 255.255.255.255/32

Note: 100.64.0.0/10 is intentionally absent.

Clash / ClashX Pro

The Fix

Add Tailscale CIDRs to the rules section before MATCH:

rules:
  - IP-CIDR,100.64.0.0/10,DIRECT
  - IP-CIDR,fd7a:115c:a1e0::/48,DIRECT
  # ... other rules ...
  - MATCH,PROXY

For Clash with TUN mode, also add to tun.excluded-routes (if TUN mode doesn't create conflicting system routes on macOS):

tun:
  enable: true
  # Only if this doesn't create conflicting system routes:
  # excluded-routes:
  #   - 100.64.0.0/10

Test with route -n get 100.x.x.x after applying to confirm no en0 hijack.

Surge

The Fix

Add to the [Rule] section:

IP-CIDR,100.64.0.0/10,DIRECT
IP-CIDR,fd7a:115c:a1e0::/48,DIRECT

In Surge's TUN Excluded Routes (if available), the same caveat applies as Shadowrocket: excluding 100.64.0.0/10 may add an en0 route. Test with route -n get to confirm.

Surge also supports skip-proxy and always-real-ip which may help:

[General]
skip-proxy = 100.64.0.0/10, fd7a:115c:a1e0::/48
always-real-ip = *.ts.net

NO_PROXY Environment Variable

The Problem

Even when system routes are correct (Tailscale utun interface wins), HTTP clients like curl, Python requests, and Node.js fetch respect http_proxy/https_proxy env vars. If NO_PROXY doesn't exclude Tailscale addresses, HTTP traffic is sent to the proxy process, which may fail to reach 100.x addresses.

This is a different conflict layer from route hijacking — routes are fine, but the application bypasses them by sending traffic to the local proxy port.

The Fix

export NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1,.ts.net,100.64.0.0/10,192.168.*,10.*,172.16.*

NO_PROXY Syntax Pitfalls

Key rule: Always use .ts.net (leading dot, no asterisk) for domain suffix matching. This is the most portable syntax across all HTTP clients.

Why Not 100.*?

100.0.0.0/8 includes public IP space:

• 100.0.0.0 – 100.63.255.255 — public IPs
• 100.64.0.0 – 100.127.255.255 — CGNAT (Tailscale uses this)
• 100.128.0.0 – 100.255.255.255 — public IPs

Using 100.* in NO_PROXY would bypass the proxy for services on public 100.x IPs — potentially breaking access to GFW-blocked services that happen to use those addresses.

MagicDNS Recommendation

Prefer accessing Tailscale devices by MagicDNS name (e.g., my-server or my-server.tailnet.ts.net) rather than raw IPs. This makes .ts.net in NO_PROXY the primary bypass mechanism, with 100.64.0.0/10 as a fallback for direct IP usage.

Check MagicDNS status:

tailscale dns status

General Principles

Why tun-excluded-routes Breaks Tailscale

On macOS, when a VPN tool excludes a CIDR from its TUN interface, it typically adds a system route pointing that CIDR to the default gateway via en0. For 100.64.0.0/10:

100.64/10  192.168.x.1  UGSc  en0       ← VPN tool adds this
100.64/10  link#N       UCSI  utun7     ← Tailscale's route

macOS route priority: UGSc > UCSI for same prefix length. Result: Tailscale traffic goes to the router, which has no route to 100.x addresses.

The Correct Approach

Let Tailscale traffic enter the VPN TUN interface, then use an application-layer DIRECT/bypass rule to send it out without proxying. This avoids polluting the system route table.

Quick Verification

After any fix, always verify:

# Route should go through Tailscale utun, not en0
route -n get <tailscale-ip>

# Should show only one 100.64/10 route (Tailscale's)
netstat -rn | grep 100.64

Emergency Rollback

If a proxy config change breaks other connectivity:

# Restart the proxy tool (Shadowrocket/Clash/Surge)
# This restores its default routes

# Or manually delete a conflicting route:
sudo route delete -net 100.64.0.0/10 <gateway-ip>