Mozilla VPN

One tap to privacy Surf, stream, game, and get work done while maintaining your privacy online. Whether you’re traveling, using public WiFi, or simply looking for more online security, we will always put your privacy first.

See: https://vpn.mozilla.org

Getting Involved

We encourage you to participate in this open source project. We love Pull Requests, Bug Reports, ideas, (security) code reviews, or any other kind of positive contribution.

Before you attempt to make a contribution please read the Community Participation Guidelines.

Here are some useful links to start:

If you want to submit a pull-request, please, install the clang format pre-commit hook: ./scripts/git-pre-commit-format install

Checking out the source code

git clone https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/mozilla-vpn-client.git
cd mozilla-vpn-client
git submodule update --init

Minimum build requirements

This list is not comprehensive. Different platforms may require other tools to be installed. Check out the platform section for more information on your specific platform.

Installing Qt6

Qt6 can be installed in a number of ways:

Download a binary package or the installer from the official QT website: https://www.qt.io/download-qt-installer - this is the recommended way for Android and iOS builds. (Our usage is covered by the QT open source license. While you will need to register with an email address, it will be free.) During the install, there will be many components available. Install:
- QT version (recommend most recent LTS):
  - WebAssembly (TP)
  - macOS (if you'll be doing macOS work)
  - Android (if you'll be doing Android work)
  - iOS (if you'll be doing iOS work)
  - QT 5 Compatibility Module
  - Additional Libraries
    - Qt Networking Authorization
    - Qt WebSockets
  - Qt Debug Information Files
- Developer and Designer Tools
  - CMake
  - Ninja
Use a package manager. For instance, we use aqt for WASM builds.
Compile Qt6 (dynamically or statically). If you want to choose this path, you can use our bash script for macOS and Linux:

./scripts/utils/qt6_compile.sh </qt6/source/code/path> </destination/path>

Installing Python 3

Python >= 3.6 is required. You also need to install a few python modules using pip:

pip install -r requirements.txt --user

(pip3 may need to be substituted for pip in the above line.)

Installing CMake

There are many ways to install CMake.

On macOS, it is easy to do with Homebrew. After installing Homebrew, run:

brew install cmake

Installing Rust

Rust is required for desktop builds (macOS, Linux and Windows). See the official rust documentation to know how to install it.

What's next?

We support the following platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and WASM. Each one is unique and it has a different section in this document.

How to build from source code for Desktop

On desktop platforms, such as Windows, Linux and macOS, we build the Mozilla VPN using CMake, and as long as the required dependencies can be located in your PATH the build process is effectively the same on each of the supported platform.

Start by creating a build directory and using cmake to generate the Makefiles.

mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr

This generation step can be augmented by providing variable definitions on the command line to adjust features, or help CMake locate its dependencies. (Using these may look like cmake -S . -B build -GXcode -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/Users/[your account]/Qt/6.2.4/macos/lib/cmake) The following variables may be of use:

CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<Qt install path>/lib/cmake: can be set if CMake is unable to locate a viable Qt installation in your PATH. (This may be an error message like Unknown CMake command "qt_add_executable”.)
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release: can be set to generate a release build, otherwise a Debug build is generated by default.
BUILD_TESTING=ON: can be set to build, and execute the unit tests using CTest
BUILD_ID=<string>: sets the build identifier that will be embedded into the project. If left unset, this will generate a timestamp when configuring the Makefiles.

Once the makefiles have been generated, the next step is to compile the source code:

cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

The following sections go into further detail for each of the supported platforms.

How to build from source code for Linux

We have tested Mozilla VPN on Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux but in this document, we focus on Ubuntu only.

On Ubuntu, the compilation of MozillaVPN is relatively easy. In addition to what we wrote before, you also need the following dependencies:

libpolkit-gobject-1-dev >= 0.105
wireguard >= 1.0.20200513
wireguard-tools >= 1.0.20200513
resolvconf >= 1.82
golang >= 1.13
cmake >= 3.16

Optional: In case you want to change the shaders, you must regenerate them:

./scripts/utils/bake_shaders.sh

Create a build directory, and configure the project for building using cmake.

mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build

If you are using a build of Qt that was not installed by your operating system, you may need to tell cmake where it is located by specifying the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH during configuration:

mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<Qt install path>/lib/cmake/

Compile the source code:

cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

Installation:

sudo cmake --install build

After the installation, you can run the app simply running:

mozillavpn

Alternatively, you can use two terminals to run the daemon manually and separately e.g.

sudo mozillavpn linuxdaemon
mozillavpn

mozillavpn linuxdaemon needs privileged access and so if you do not run as root, you will get an authentication prompt every time you try to reconnect the vpn.

How to build from source code on macOS

There are two ways to build the project on macOS - Through the terminal or with Xcode. For both, you must install a copy of the VPN application in the main macOS Applications folder so that the daemon is available for your debug build. Any recent build should suffice. (If major changes were made to the daemon since the last release, you may need to use a copy of the debug build for the macOS Applications folder.)

Building from terminal

On macOS, we compile the app using Xcode version 12 or higher.
You also need to install go >= v1.16. If you don't have it done already, download go from the official website.
Create a build directory, and configure the project for building using cmake.

# Run this next line from the main project folder
mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build

Some variables that might be useful when configuring the project:

CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<Qt install path>/lib/cmake: can be set if CMake is unable to locale a viable Qt installation in your path.
CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY=<Certificate Identity>: can be set to enable code signing during the build process.
INSTALLER_SIGN_IDENTITY=<Certificate Identity>: can be set to enable signing of the installer package.
BUILD_OSX_APP_IDENTIFIER=<App Identifier>: can be set to change the application bundle identifier. This defaults to org.mozilla.macos.FirefoxVPN if not set.
BUILD_VPN_DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=<Development Team ID>: can be set to change the development team used for Xcode certificates. This defaults to 43AQ936H96 if not set.
CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES="arm64;x86_64": can be set to produce a universal binary that will run on both Intel and Apple silicon devices (experimental).

Compile the source code:

cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

This will produce the application bundle in build/src/Mozilla VPN.app.

Note: to open the application from the command line, run open -n build/src/Mozilla\ VPN.app.

Optional: To build the installer package, we can specify the pkg target when building:

cmake --build build --target pkg

This will produce an unsigned installer package at build/macos/pkg/MozillaVPN-unsigned.pkg and a signed installer at build/macos/pkg/MozillaVPN-signed.pkg if a valid installer signing identity was provided in the INSTALLER_SIGN_IDENTITIY variable at configuration time.

Building with Xcode

Before you start this process, open Xcode, go to settings, accounts, and sign in with your Apple ID.

In some circumstances, you may wish to use Xcode to build the Mozilla VPN in order to access cloud-managed signing certificates. In such circumstances, this can be enabled by using the -GXcode command line option:

mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build -GXcode

This will generate an Xcode project file at build/Mozilla VPN.xcodeproj which can be opened by Xcode:

open build/Mozilla\ VPN.xcodeproj

Once Xcode has opened the project, building is as simple as selecting the mozillavpn target and starting the build from the Product->Build For->Testing menu.

Note: some developers have experienced that Xcode reports that go isn't available and so you can't build the app and dependencies in Xcode. (This may show up as build errors like Run custom shell script ‘Generate extension/CMakeFiles/cargo_mozillavpnnp’ \ No such file or directory \ Command PhaseScriptExecution failed with a nonzero exit code) In this case, a workaround is to symlink go into Xcode directory as follows:

Make sure go is 1.16+: go version
Find the location of go binary which go example output /usr/local/go/bin/go
Symlink e.g.

cd /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/
sudo ln -s /usr/local/go/bin/go
# You may also need to symlink Cargo and Rust
sudo ln -s $(which cargo)
sudo ln -s $(which rustc)

This step needs to be executed each time Xcode updates.

How to build from source code for iOS

There are two ways to build the project on iOS, using the legacy Qt build system qmake and we have also added experimental support for cmake.

Note: Due to lack of low level networking support, it is not possible to turn on the VPN from the iOS simulator in Xcode.

Building with QMake

On iOS, we compile the app using Xcode version 12 or higher.
We use qmake to generate the Xcode project and then we "patch" it to add extra components such as the wireguard, the browser bridge and so on.

We patch the Xcode project using xcodeproj. To install it:

gem install xcodeproj # probably you want to run this command with `sudo`

You also need to install go >= v1.16. If you don't have it done already, download go from the official website.
Copy xcode.xconfig.template to xcode.xconfig

cp xcode.xconfig.template xcode.xconfig

Modify the xcode.xconfig to something like:

APP_ID_MACOS = org.mozilla.macos.FirefoxVPN
LOGIN_ID_MACOS = org.mozilla.macos.FirefoxVPN.login-item

GROUP_ID_IOS = group.org.mozilla.ios.Guardian
APP_ID_IOS = org.mozilla.ios.FirefoxVPN
NETEXT_ID_IOS = org.mozilla.ios.FirefoxVPN.network-extension

Make sure qmake is available by setting the environment variable QT_IOS_BIN:

export QT_IOS_BIN=/Users/[username]/Qt/6.2.4/ios/bin

Then generate the Xcode project using our script (and an optional adjust token):

./scripts/macos/apple_compile.sh ios [--adjust <adjust_token>] -q ~/Qt/6.2.4/macos/bin

Xcode should automatically open. You can then run/test/archive/ship the app. If you prefer to compile the app in command-line mode, use the following command:

xcodebuild build CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="" CODE_SIGNING_REQUIRED=NO -project "Mozilla VPN.xcodeproj"

Building with CMake (Experimental)

We also support building from sources for iOS using CMake.

On iOS, we compile the app using Xcode version 12 or higher and Qt version 6.3.2.
Ensure rust targets for iOS development are installed.

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

We use qt-cmake from the Qt installation to configure the Xcode project.

mkdir build-ios
/Users/example/Qt/6.3.2/ios/bin/qt-cmake . -B build-ios -GXcode

Some variables that might be useful when configuring the project:

BUILD_ADJUST_SDK_TOKEN=<SDK Token>: can be set to enable the use of the Adjust telemetry and attribution data collection.
BUILD_IOS_APP_IDENTIFIER=<App Identifier>: can be set to change the application bundle identifier. This defaults to org.mozilla.ios.FirefoxVPN if not set.
BUILD_VPN_DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=<Development Team ID>: can be set to change the development team used for Xcode certificates. This defaults to 43AQ936H96 if not set.

Open the generated Xcode project with open build-ios/Mozilla\ VPN.xcodeproj.
Select the mozillavpn target and Any iOS Device (arm64) as the build configuration for iOS devices, or select any of the simulation targets when building for the simulator.
Click on the Play button to start building and signing of the Mozilla VPN app. (If this step results in an error, ensure the app was built with Qt 6.3.2. If it was not, the build folder must be completely deleted and the app must be re-built.)

How to build from source code for Android

You need to install go >= v1.16. If you don't have it done already, download it from the official website.
Follow the Getting started page.
Set the QT_HOST_PATH environment variable to point to the location of the androiddeployqt tool -- minus the /bin suffix i.e. if $(which androiddeployqt) is $HOME/Qt/6.2.4/gcc_64/bin/androiddeployqt, QT_HOST_PATH is $HOME/Qt/6.2.4/gcc_64/.
Set the ANDROID_SDK_ROOT and ANDROID_NDK_ROOT environment variables, to point to the Android SDK and NDK installation directories. Required NDK versions: 23.1.7779620 and 21.0.6113669.
Add the Android NDK llvm prebuilt tools to your PATH. These are located under the Android NDK installation directory on ${ANDROID_NDK_ROOT}/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/*/bin.
Install the Rust Android targets rustup target add x86_64-linux-android i686-linux-android armv7-linux-androideabi aarch64-linux-android.
Build the apk

./scripts/android/cmake.sh -d </path/to/Qt6/> -A <architecture> <debug|release>

Add the Adjust SDK token with -a | --adjust <adjust_token>.

Valid architecture values: x86, x86_64, armeabi-v7a arm64-v8a, by default it will use all.

The apk will be located in .tmp/src/android-build/build/outputs/apk/debug/android-build-debug.apk
Install with adb on device/emulator

adb install .tmp/src/android-build/build/outputs/apk/debug/android-build-debug.apk

How to build from source code for Windows

For Windows, there are a few extra dependencies to install:

perl: http://strawberryperl.com/
nasm: https://www.nasm.us/
Visual Studio 2019: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/
- Select the Desktop development with C++ and Python development workloads.
OpenSSL: https://www.openssl.org/source/
- On windows you can choose to bundle OpenSSL when installing python. Skip this step if you have done so.
Go: https://golang.org/dl/

We strongly recommend using CMake version 3.21 or later when building with Visual Studio. Earlier versions of CMake have bugs that can cause the build to hang.

It is also recommended to use the x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019 for CLI builds on Windows.

Create a build directory, and configure the project for building using cmake.

mkdir build && cmake -S . -B build

Compile the source code.

cmake --build build --config Release

Optional: To build the MSI installer package, we can specify the msi target when building:

cmake --build build --config Release --target msi

Optional: To build and debug through the VS 2019 UI, follow these steps:
- Open VS2019
- From the top menu, select File -> Open -> CMake
- Choose the top-level CMakeLists.txt of the VPN project.
- Choose x64-Debug as the build config
- Choose src/Mozilla VPN.exe as the startup item.
- Click on the green play button to launch the client attached to a debugger.

How to build from source code for WASM

Mozilla VPN can be used as a WASM module to test the UI, the localization and to simulate issues. Take a look at our WASM build here.

To build the app as a WASM module, you must install emscripten and Qt6 for wasm.

Read the following pages to know more:

When you are ready, create a build directory and configure the project for building using qt-cmake + cmake:

mkdir build && qt-cmake cmake -S . -B build

Compile the source code:

cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

Testing

When built for any one of the desktop platforms, this project will also generate a suite of unit tests. The tests are built by manually specifying the build_tests target. Once built, you can run them with ctest as follows:

cmake --build build --target build_tests
ctest --test-dir build

Running the functional tests

Note: Functional tests require a dummy build of the application, which is not built by default. To build the dummyvpn target, in the root folder of this repository run:
cmake --build build -j$(nproc) --target dummyvpn
This will create a dummy build under the tests/dummyvpn folder. To run the functional tests against this build, make sure the MVPN_BIN environment variable is set:
export MVPN_BIN=$(pwd)/build/tests/dummyvpn/dummyvpn

Install node (if needed) and then npm install to install the testing dependencies
Compile the testing addons: ./scripts/addon/generate_all_tests.py
Make a .env file and place it in the root folder for the repo. It should include:
MVPN_BIN (location of compiled mvpn binary. This must be a dummy binary, see note above.)
ARTIFACT_DIR - optional (directory to put screenshots from test failures)
Sample .env file:

export PATH=$PATH:~/Qt/6.2.4/macos/bin:$PATH
export QT_MACOS_BIN=~/Qt/6.2.4/macos/bin
MVPN_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5000
MVPN_BIN=dummybuild/src/mozillavpn
ARTIFACT_DIR=tests/artifact

Run a test from the root of the project: npm run functionalTest path/to/testFile.js. To run, say, the authentication tests: npm run functionalTest tests/functional/testAuthenticationInApp.js.

Developer Options and staging environment

To enable the staging environment, open the Get Help window, and click on the Get Help text 6 times within 10 seconds to unlock the Developer Options menu. On this menu, you can enable on the Staging Server checkbox to switch to the staging environment. A full restart of the VPN will be required for this option to take effect.

Inspector

The inspector is a debugging tool available only when the staging environment is activated. When running MozillaVPN, go to the inspector page to interact with the app. Connect the inspector to the app using the web-socket interface. On desktop, use ws://localhost:8765.

The inspector offers a number of tools to help debug and navigate through the VPN client:

Shell: By default the inspector link will take you to the Shell. From there type help to see the list of available commands.
Logs: Will constantly output all the app activities happening in real time. This information includes the timestamp, component and message. From the left column you can select which component(s) you'd like to monitor.
Network Inspector: Includes a list of all incoming and outgoing network requests. This is especially helpful when debugging network related issues or monitoring how the app communicates with external components such as the Guardian.
QML Inspector: Allows you to identify and inspect all QML components in the app by mirroring the local VPN client running on your machine and highlighting components by clicking on the QML instance on the right.

Glean

Glean is a Mozilla analytics & telemetry solution that provides a consistent experience and behavior across all of Mozilla products.

When the client is built in debug mode, pings will have the app channel set to debug. Additionally, ping contents will be logged to the client logs.

When the client is in staging mode, but not debug mode, pings will have the app channel set to staging which allows for filtering between staging and production pings through the client_info.app_channel metric present in all pings.

A note on Glean embedding

Qt only accepts major.minor versions for importing. So if, for example, you're embedding glean v0.21.2 then it will still, for Qt's purpose, be v0.21.

Working on tickets with new Glean instrumentation

If you are responsible for a piece of work that adds new Glean instrumentation you will need to do a data review. Following is the recommended process along with some pointers.

The data review process is also described here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Data_Collection

The basic process is this:

Implement the new instrumentation. Refer to the Glean book on how to do that.
When adding or updating new metrics or pings, the Glean YAML files might need to be updated. When that is the case a new data-review must be requested and added to the list of data-reviews for the updated/added instrumentation. When updating data-review links on the YAML files, these are the things to keep in mind:
- Include a link to the GitHub bug that describes the work, this must be a public link;
- Put "TBD" in the data_reviews entry, that needs to be updated before releasing the new instrumentation and ideally before merging it;
- Think about whether the data you are collecting is technical or interaction, sometimes it's both. In that case pick interaction which is a higher category of data. (See more details on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Data_Collection);
Open a draft PR on GitHub;
Fill out the data-review¹ form and request a data-review from one of the Mozilla Data Stewards². That can be done by opening a Bugzilla ticket or more easily by attaching the questionnaire as a comment on the PR that implements the instrumentation changes. For Bugzilla, there is a special Bugzilla data review request option and for GitHub it's enough to add the chosen data steward as a reviewer for the PR.
The data-review questionnaire will result in a data review response. The link to that response is what should be added to the data_review entry on the Glean YAML files. It must be a public link.

Note:

It is ok for a reviewer to review and approve your code while you're waiting for data review.

It is not ok to release code that contains instrumentation changes without a data review r+. It is good practice not to merge code that does not have a data review r+.

Status

The data-review questionnaire can be found at https://github.com/mozilla/data-review/blob/main/request.md. That can be copy pasted and filled out manually. However, since the VPN application uses Glean for data collection developers can also use the glean_parser data-review command, which generates a mostly filled out data-review questionnaire for Glean users. The questionnaire can seem quite intimidating, but don't panic. First, look at an old data-review such as https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/mozilla-vpn-client/pull/4594. Questions 1, 2, 3 an 10 are the ones that require most of your attention and thought. If you don't know the answers to these questions, reach out to Sarah Bird or the product manager so you can answer these with full confidence. ↩
Feel free to ping any of the data-stewards. If the collection is time sensitive consider pinging all data-stewards directly on the data-stewards matrix channel. ↩

brizental/mozilla-vpn-client