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At present, the Windows and Linux GUI client launch the Tauri application via the `App::run` method. This function never returns again. Instead, whenever we request the Tauri app to exit, Tauri will internally call `std::process::exit`, thus preventing ordinary clean-up from happening. Whilst we somehow managed to work around this particular part, having the app exit the process internally also makes error handling and reporting to the user difficult as there are now two parts in the code where we need to handle errors: - Before we start up the Tauri app - Before we end the Tauri app (i.e. signal to it that we want to exit) It would be much easier to understand, if we could call into Tauri, let it do its thing and upon a requested exit by the user, the called function (i.e. `App::run`) simply returns again. After diving into the inner workings of Tauri, we have achieved just that by adding a new function to `App`: `App::run_return` (https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri/pull/12668). Using `App::run_return` we can now orchestrate a `gui::run` function that simply returns after Tauri has shutdown. Most importantly, it will also exit upon any fatal errors that we encounter in the controller and thus unify the error handling path into a single one. These errors are now all handled at the call-site of `gui::run`. Building on top of this, we will be able to further simplify the error handling within the GUI client. I am hoping to gradually replace our monolithic `Error` enums with individual errors that we can extract from an `anyhow::Error`. This would make it easier to reason about where certain errors get generated and thus overall improve the UX of the application by displaying better error messages, not failing the entire app in certain cases, etc.
gui-client
This crate houses a GUI client for Linux and Windows.
Setup (Ubuntu)
To compile natively for x86_64 Linux:
- Install rustup
- Install pnpm
sudo apt-get install build-essential curl file libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev libssl-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libxdo-dev wget
Setup (Windows)
To compile natively for x86_64 Windows:
- Install rustup
- Install pnpm
Recommended IDE Setup
(From Tauri's default README)
Building
Builds are best started from the frontend tool pnpm. This ensures typescript
and css is compiled properly before bundling the application.
See the package.json script for more details as to what's
going on under the hood.
# Builds a release exe
pnpm build
# Linux:
# The release exe and deb package are up in the workspace.
stat ../target/release/firezone
stat ../target/release/bundle/deb/*.deb
# Windows:
# The release exe and MSI installer should be up in the workspace.
# The exe can run without being installed
stat ../target/release/Firezone.exe
stat ../target/release/bundle/msi/Firezone_0.0.0_x64_en-US.msi
Signing the Windows MSI in GitHub CI
The MSI is signed in GitHub CI using the firezone/firezone repository's
secrets. This was originally set up using these guides for inspiration:
- https://melatonin.dev/blog/how-to-code-sign-windows-installers-with-an-ev-cert-on-github-actions/
- https://support.globalsign.com/code-signing/code-signing-using-azure-key-vault
Renewing / issuing a new code signing certificate and associated Azure entities is outside the scope of this section. Use the guides above if this needs to be done.
Instead, you'll most likely simply need to rotate the Azure CodeSigning Application's client secret.
To do so, login to the Azure portal using your @firezoneprod.onmicrosoft.com account.
Try to access it via the following deep-link.
If that doesn't work:
- Go to the
Microsoft Entra IDservice - Click on
App Registrations - Make sure the tab
All applicationsis selected - Find and navigate to the
CodeSigningapp registration - Client on
client credentials - Click
New client secret - Note down the secret value. This should be entered into the GitHub repository's secrets as
AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET.
Running
From this dir:
# This will start the frontend tools in watch mode and then run `tauri dev`
pnpm dev
# You can call debug subcommands on the exe from this directory too
# e.g. this is equivalent to `cargo run -- debug hostname`
cargo tauri dev -- -- debug hostname
# The exe is up in the workspace
stat ../target/debug/Firezone.exe
The app's config and logs will be stored at
C:\Users\$USER\AppData\Local\dev.firezone.client.
Platform support
Ubuntu 22.04 and newer is supported.
Tauri says it should work on Windows 10, Version 1803 and up. Older versions may work if you manually install WebView2
x86_64 architecture is supported for Windows. aarch64 and x86_64 are supported for Linux.
Threat model
See Security