firezone/swift/apple

Firezone Apple Client

Firezone clients for macOS and iOS.

This document is intended as a reference for developers working on the Apple clients.

Prerequisites

1. Ensure you have the latest stable version of Xcode installed and selected.
2. Rust: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
3. Request your Firezone email added to our Apple Developer Account
4. Open Xcode, go to Settings -> Account and log in.

You may consider using a macOS VM (such as Parallels Desktop) to test the standalone macOS client, as it can be easier to test different macOS versions and configurations without risking your main machine.

Building

1. Add required Rust targets:

   Ensure you've activated the correct toolchain version for your local environment with rustup default <toolchain> (find this from /rust/rust-toolchain.toml file), then run:

   rustup target add aarch64-apple-ios aarch64-apple-darwin x86_64-apple-darwin
   

2. Clone this repo:

   git clone https://github.com/firezone/firezone
   

3. cd to the Apple clients code

   cd swift/apple
   

4. Open project in Xcode:

   open Firezone.xcodeproj
   

5. Build and run the Firezone target.

Firezone target will orchestrate building connlib with Rust as an Xcode build phase. Xcode build can be triggered both from Xcode UI or via the Makefile.

Note: To test the iOS app, you'll need a physical iOS device such as an iPhone or iPad. Network Extensions can't be debugged in the iOS simulator.

Making release builds for local testing

1. Install the needed signing certificates to your keychain by exporting them from 1Password and double-clicking them to install. Contact a team member if you need access. Once installed, you should see the distribution, developer ID, and installer certificates in your keychain:

   > security find-identity -v -p codesigning
   
   ...
   6) A6815986DDB2A0FA999DA89F04E4F6E0B3ACD724 "Apple Distribution: Firezone, Inc. (47R2M6779T)"
   7) 281CCA77645E0399F9E80D6190D8F412EE7BA871 "3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Firezone, Inc. (47R2M6779T)"
   8) 8BA4CA21B9737F37397253A6AA483196033ABAE2 "Developer ID Application: Firezone, Inc. (47R2M6779T)"
       8 valid identities found
   

2. Download the provisioning profiles from the Apple Developer Portal and install them by dragging them onto the Xcode icon in the Dock.

3. Run the appropriate build script:

   scripts/build/ios-appstore.sh
   

   or

   scripts/build/macos-appstore.sh
   

   or

   scripts/build/macos-standalone.sh
   

Developing

IDE

The most obvious and encouraged IDE choice for Firezone macOS/iOS development is Xcode. It is required for:

• configuring code signing / provisioning
• performing any project-related changes (editing Xcode project manually can break it)
• debugging
• analyzing the app in Instruments

Note: Although Swift and sourcekit-lsp are technically cross-platform, this method still relies on Xcode to build the project. However, if you prefer to use another IDE for code editing, you can use any LSP-compatible editor (such as Neovim, VSCode, Zed, Emacs etc) with sourcekit-lsp support.

In order to configure your IDE follow these steps:

brew install xcode-build-server
make lsp
make build

Note: Although Swift and sourcekit-lsp are technically cross-platform, this method still relies on Xcode to build the project.

Instruments

Instruments is a powerful performance analyzer and visualizer application developed by Apple, integrated in Xcode. It helps developers profile, debug, and optimize their applications by tracking various metrics such as CPU activity, memory allocation, file and network usage, graphics rendering, and energy consumption. Instruments uses a timeline view to show events in apps like CPU usage spikes, memory leaks, and UI responsiveness issues.

What to look for in Instruments

network extension memory usage

iOS has a 50 MB hard cap on memory usage in the network extension. Whenever we make changes to our threading model it's a good idea to double-check we don't go over there.

Debugging

This Network Extension debugging guide is a great resource to use as a starting point.

Debugging on iOS simulator

Network Extensions can't be debugged in the iOS simulator, so you'll need a physical iOS device to develop the iOS build on.

NetworkExtension not loading (macOS)

If the tunnel fails to come up after signing in, it can be for a number of reasons. Start by checking the system logs for errors -- commonly it is due to entitlements, signing, notarization, or some other security issue.

One technique is to start a log stream in another terminal while replicating the issue, looking for errors reported by other macOS subsystems hinting at why the Network Extension failed to load.

If nothing seem obviously wrong, it could be that the Network Extension isn't loading because of a LaunchAgent issue.

Try clearing your LaunchAgent db:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -delete

Note: You MUST reboot after doing this!

Outdated version of NetworkExtension loading

If you're making changes to the Network Extension and it doesn't seem to be reflected when you run/debug, it could be that PluginKit is still launching your old NetworkExtension. Try this to remove it:

pluginkit -v -m -D -i dev.firezone.firezone.network-extension
pluginkit -a <path>
pluginkit -r <path>

Cleaning up

Occasionally you might encounter strange issues where it seems like the artifacts being debugged don't match the code, among other things. In these cases it's good to clean up using one of the methods below.

Resetting Xcode package cache

Removes cached packages, built extensions, etc.

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

Removing build artifacts

To cleanup Swift build objects:

cd swift/apple
./cleanup.sh

To cleanup both Swift and Rust build objects:

cd swift/apple
./cleanup.sh all

Wiping connlib log directory

rm -rf $HOME/Library/Group\ Containers/47R2M6779T.dev.firezone.firezone/Library/Caches/logs/connlib
sudo rm -rf /private/var/root/Library/Group\ Containers/47R2M6779T.dev.firezone.firezone/Library/Caches/logs/connlib

Clearing the Keychain item

Sometimes it's helpful to be able to test how the app behaves when the keychain item is missing. You can remove the keychain item with the following command:

security delete-generic-password -s "dev.firezone.firezone"

Generating new signing certificates and provisioning profiles for app store distribution

App Store distribution certifications are only good for a year, then you need to generate new ones. Since we use GitHub CI, we must manually manage signing and provisioning since it's not possible (nor advised) to sign into Xcode from the GitHub runner CI. Here's how you populate the required GitHub secrets.

Note: Be sure to enter these secrets for Dependabot as well, otherwise its CI runs will fail.

Certificates

You first need two certs: The build / signing cert (Apple Distribution) and the installer cert (Mac Installer Distribution). You can generate these in the Apple Developer portal.

These are the secrets in GH actions:

APPLE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_BASE64
APPLE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD
APPLE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_BASE64
APPLE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD

How to do it:

1. Go to Apple Developer
2. Click the "+" button to generate a new distribution certificate for App Store
3. It will ask for a CSR. Open Keychain Access, go to Keychain Access -> Certificate Assistant -> Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority and follow the prompts. Make sure to select "save to disk" to save the CSR.
4. Upload the CSR to Apple Developer. Download the resulting certificate.
5. Important: Back up the downloaded certificate into 1Password. You will no longer have have access to its private key (required for signing) if you lose it.
6. Double-click to install it in Keychain Access.
7. Right-click the cert in Keychain access. Export the certificate, choose p12 file. Make sure to set a password -- this is the APPLE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD.
8. Convert the p12 file to base64:

   base64 < cert.p12
   

9. Save the base64 output as APPLE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_BASE64.
10. Delete cert.p12 and the cert from Keychain Access once you're sure it's backed up to 1Password.

Repeat the steps above but choose "Mac Installer certificate" instead of "distribution certificate" in step 2, and save the resulting base64 and password as APPLE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_BASE64 and APPLE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD.

Provisioning profiles

APPLE_IOS_APP_PROVISIONING_PROFILE
APPLE_IOS_NE_PROVISIONING_PROFILE
APPLE_MACOS_APP_PROVISIONING_PROFILE
APPLE_MACOS_NE_PROVISIONING_PROFILE

1. Go to Apple Developer
2. Click the "+" button to generate a new provisioning profile for App Store
3. Select the appropriate app ID and distribution certificate you just created. You'll need a provisioning profile for each app and network extension, so 4 total (mac app, mac network extension, ios app, ios network extension).
4. Download the resulting provisioning profiles.
5. Encode to base64 and save each using the secrets names above:

base64 < profile.mobileprovision

Generating new signing certificates and provisioning profiles for standalone distribution

The process is much the same as above for the macOS standalone client, with one important difference: the signing certificate must be a Developer ID Application certificate, not an Apple Distribution certificate. DO NOT GENERATE A NEW CERTIFICATE UNLESS THE OLD ONE HAS EXPIRED OR IS LOST. Developer ID Application certificates are precious and we only have a limited number of them. They also cannot be revoked. So do not generate them. Instead, obtain it from 1Password.

Also, the signing certificate for the package installer artifact specifically needs to be a Developer ID Installer certificate, not a Developer ID Application or Apple Distribution certificate. This is needed to sign the PKG files we distribute that are consumed by MDMs.

Once you've done that, you can create the provisioning profiles and update the GitHub secrets using the same steps as above, only using the following secrets names:

APPLE_STANDALONE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_BASE64
APPLE_STANDALONE_BUILD_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD
APPLE_STANDALONE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_BASE64
APPLE_STANDALONE_MAC_INSTALLER_CERTIFICATE_P12_PASSWORD
APPLE_STANDALONE_MACOS_APP_PROVISIONING_PROFILE
APPLE_STANDALONE_MACOS_NE_PROVISIONING_PROFILE