Obscura VPN Client

Obscura VPN library, CLI client, and App

Support

No support is provided for this code directly. However, if you are experiencing issues with your Obscura VPN service please contact support@obscura.net.

Contributions

At this time we are unable to accept external contributions. This is something that we plan to resolve soon. However until we finish the paperwork we are unable to look at any patches and will close all PRs without looking at them.

macOS App

On macOS the app installs and manages a network extension (system extension). The network extension manages the virtual device and maintains the tunnel using the Rust code as library.

Setup

1. Setup Nix
2. Install dependencies: nix-env -iA nixpkgs.{cmake,rustup}
3. Open the main Xcode project

   nix develop --print-build-logs --command just xcode-open

4. In Xcode, login with an account with membership in "Sovereign Engineering Inc."
5. Register development machine in Apple Developer portal (can be done in Xcode)
6. Enable system extension developer mode
7. Setup Developer ID provisioning profile and codesigning for Prod Client build scheme
   1. Go to https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/profiles/list
      • Download "Developer ID: System Network Extension"
      • Download "Developer ID: VPN Client App"
   2. Install both provisioning profiles by double-clicking them.
   3. Ask Carl to send the Developer ID codesigning certificate and the corresponding password
   4. Double click the certificate, enter the password, and install it to your "login" keychain

Building and Running

For macOS and iOS

1. Open the main Xcode project:

   nix develop --print-build-logs --command just xcode-open

2. Pick a build scheme using Xcode's GUI, one of:

   ℹ️ INFO: Xcode differentiates between "build schemes" and "build configurations", see Apple's docs on this for more details.

   1. Dev Client: Development Client

      General purpose for development. Uses the main UI with additional developer and pre-release features exposed.

      Uses the Debug* build configurations. Codesigned with the Apple Development xcode-managed identity.

      ⚠️ WARNING: When using this build scheme, make sure you are quitting the app via the top-right status menu bar and NOT using Xcode's "Stop" as doing so does not actually stop the dev server. This is because stopping via Xcode doesn't run the build scheme's "Run → Post-actions"

   2. Prod Client: The App with a static web bundle

      Useful for reproducing what the final shippable app will look like and be built as.

      Uses the Release* build configurations. Codesigned with the Developer ID Application: Sovereign Engineering Inc. (5G943LR562) manually-managed identity.

      The static web bundle built with the build scheme's "Build → Pre-actions".

      If you encounter trouble with this build scheme, especially with codesigning or provisioning profiles:

      1. Make sure that you've completed the relevant steps in setup
      2. See additional instructions in Confirming "Developer ID" Setup

   3. Bare Client: The App with a minimal HTML UI

      Useful for fine-grain control and debugging.

      Uses the Debug* build configurations. Codesigned with the Apple Development xcode-managed identity.

3. Build or Run the App

   • ⌘ + B (Build), or
   • ⌘ + R (Run)

   💡 TIP: It may initially seem like Xcode is doing nothing when you run or build, but it may just be running the build scheme's "Pre-actions", see the "Report navigator" in Xcode's top-left app menu: "View → Navigators → Reports" to track the actual status.

   💡 TIP: If a build fails with could not find included file 'buildversion.xcconfig' in search paths, see the relevant troubleshooting entry.

   ---

   Xcode places built products in a deeply nested directory structure that it controls, with seperate folders for each build configuration. The easiest way to locate where the app is:

   1. "Run" the app
   2. Once the app's icon appears on the macOS Dock, ⌘-Click the app icon to reveal it in the finder.

💡 TIP: It is highly recommended to read through various sections in Development Tips to better understand the various ways we've configured the Xcode build system to work with our development process.

For Android

The Android app requires a special build of the Rust library and Obscura UI. These are built using Nix, while the Android app itself can be built using Android Studio for local development, or the Gradle build system to create an official build.

1. Build the Obscura UI

   OBS_WEB_PLATFORM="android" nix develop .#web --print-build-logs -c just web-bundle-build

2. Build the Rust library

   nix develop .#android --command bash -c 'cd rustlib && cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a build --release'

3. Open Android Studio and point it at the android directory, or
4. Use Gradle to build everything

   nix develop '.#android' --command bash -c 'cd android && gradle --no-daemon $GRADLE_OPTS build'

Swift unit tests

"Swift Testing" tests are placed in *Test.swift files, which need to be a member of the Tests target. Testing (not running) with the Tests scheme builds and executes all tests.

Debugging

Logs

Both app and network extension logs are available via Apple's unified logging system.

Analyzing Logs

There are tools for analyzing logs available as bin/log-*. They accept log files in JSON lines format. This can be found in the app's Debug Bundle or from the Apple log command by specifying --style=ndjson.

The main tool is bin/log-text.py which just turns the logs into a readable text format as well as applying some basic filtering with a few CLI options to apply more filters. Other tools are available, run with --help to get information about what they do.

For more in-depth analysis you are likely best using the tools as a starting point and modifying them as needed or using other tools like jq, sqlite or duckdb. If your analysis is generally useful consider committing it.

Stream Logs

This will output logs starting at the point in time when you run this command:

log stream --info --debug --predicate 'process CONTAINS[c] "obscura" || subsystem CONTAINS[c] "obscura"'

View Past Logs

Warning

Since Apple may or may not persist logs at the INFO or DEBUG level, logs at these level might be lost. See Apple's developer docs on this for more information.

You may be able to set a log configuration to ensure that these logs are persisted, though this has not been tested, please update this README with instructions if you successfully test this. See Apple's docs on "Customizing Logging Behavior While Debugging" for more information.

log show --last 200 --info --debug --color always --predicate 'process CONTAINS[c] "obscura" || subsystem CONTAINS[c] "obscura"' | less +G -R

UserDefaults

defaults read "net.obscura.vpn-client-app"
# delete all defaults including Sparkle related keys (SU*)
defaults delete-all "net.obscura.vpn-client-app"
# delete keys individually
defaults delete "net.obscura.vpn-client-app" <key>

Running Checks

Linting

nix develop --print-build-logs --command just lint

Formatting

Checking

nix develop --print-build-logs --command just format-check

Auto-fixing

nix develop --print-build-logs --command just format-fix

Building a Notarized Disk Image

1. Save authentication credentials for the Apple notary service (only need to do once)

   xcrun notarytool store-credentials "notarytool-password" --team-id 5G943LR562

   Use appleid.apple.com --> App-Specific Passwords

2. (OPTIONAL) If we're doing a release, tag the version git tag -s v/1.23 -m v/1.23 && git push --tags.

3. Unlock the "Login" keychain: security unlock-keychain

4. Build the signed and notarized disk image: just build-dmg

   💡 TIP: This command uses AppleScript automation of Finder to change the background of Disk Images, so Finder windows may open.

   The built disk image will appear in the current working directory as "Obscura VPN.dmg"

Troubleshooting

cargo not rebuilding when it should

A lot of Xcode-set properties don't properly trigger a rebuild from cargo even though they're supposed to. The most prominent of which is MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET.

This is easily worked-around by "Product → Clean Build Folder..." in Xcode then rerunning the build.

Upstream status on this:

• rust-lang/cc-rs#906
• rust-lang/rust#118204

Development Tips

Enabling system extension developer mode

This is necessary for:

• The systemextensionsctl commands to work, and
• To allow installing and running system extensions from places other than /Applications

According to Apple's docs for system extensions, as of 2024-07-04:

You must place all system extensions in the Contents/Library/SystemExtensions directory of your app bundle, and the app itself must be installed in one of the system’s Applications directories. To allow development of your app outside of these directories, use the systemextensionsctl command-line tool to enable developer mode. When in developer mode, the system doesn't check the location of your system extension prior to loading it, so you can load it from anywhere in the file system.

To accomplish this:

1. Disable system integrity protection
2. Then, run

   systemextensionsctl developer on

Removing network extension (system extension)

1. Ensure that system extension developer mode is enabled
2. Then, run

   systemextensionsctl uninstall 5G943LR562 net.obscura.vpn-client-app.system-network-extension

Nix Setup

• Install nix (only the package manager is needed)

• Enable flakes

  Add the following to ~/.config/nix/nix.conf or /etc/nix/nix.conf:

  experimental-features = nix-command flakes
  

• Optional, but strongly recommended: Set up nix-direnv and integrate it with your preferred shell

  If you do this, you can omit the nix develop ... --command parts, as cd-ing into the repository directory will set up your environment variables with the correct tools as long as you've direnv allow-ed the directory.

Confirming "Developer ID" Setup

To confirm that the Developer ID provisioning profile and codesigning are set up correctly (required for the Prod Client build scheme):

1. Pick the Prod Client build scheme in Xcode
2. Create an Archive Choose from Xcode's top-left app menu: "Product → Archive"
3. Ensure that the "Archive" action succeeds in the "Report navigator" Choose from Xcode's top-left app menu: "View → Navigators → Reports"

Linux

Warning

As of 2024-07-04, the Linux client is not maintained.

cargo build --release && sudo RUST_LOG=info ./target/release/obscuravpn-client