Zoltán Papp
9a76507b14
Two Linux packaging issues, both surfaced by the netbird-ui deb/rpm built from .goreleaser_ui.yaml. 1) License / vendor metadata ---------------------------- The nfpm entries for the UI package set only maintainer/description/ homepage, leaving the License and Vendor RPM/DEB tags empty. KDE Discover (and GNOME Software) then render the package as "Licenses: Unknown" / "Unknown author", with a scary license-warning popup on install. The daemon's main .goreleaser.yaml already set license (commit #5659) but never vendor, and the UI config was skipped entirely. Fix: add `license: BSD-3-Clause` + `vendor: NetBird` to both UI nfpm entries (deb + rpm), and `vendor: NetBird` to the daemon's deb + rpm entries for consistency. BSD-3-Clause is correct for client/ui — the repo is BSD-3-Clause except management/, signal/, relay/, combined/ (AGPLv3), none of which the UI touches. 2) KDE Wayland window/taskbar icon ---------------------------------- On KDE Plasma 6 under Wayland the app launched with the generic Wails icon in the window titlebar and the taskbar / Alt-Tab switcher, even though /usr/share/pixmaps/netbird.png (the launcher icon, resolved from the desktop entry's `Icon=netbird`) was correct. Root cause is how a Wayland compositor decides a window's icon. Unlike X11 there is no per-window _NET_WM_ICON the app can push at runtime — GTK4 even removed gtk_window_set_icon, so the embedded assets/netbird.png the binary carries is simply ignored. Instead the compositor matches the window's Wayland **app_id** to an installed .desktop file and uses that entry's `Icon=` key. The app_id is not "netbird": Wails hardcodes it as `org.wails.<name>` (pkg/application/linux_cgo.go: `fmt.Sprintf("org.wails.%s", name)`, name = sanitized Options.Name), yielding **org.wails.netbird**. There is no Wails option to override the prefix. Verified the live value on the Fedora-40 / KDE 6.3 / Wayland test VM by dumping workspace.windowList() via a KWin script: js: ZZZWIN org.wails.netbird ## NetBird KDE needs two things to associate the running window with our desktop entry and thus paint our icon: - the desktop entry's basename should equal the app_id, so the titlebar decoration (which looks the entry up by app_id -> <app_id>.desktop) finds it, and - a `StartupWMClass=<app_id>` line, which the taskbar / task switcher use to map the surface to the entry. Fix (no Wails fork needed — app_id stays org.wails.netbird, which the user never sees; only Name=NetBird and the icon are visible): - install the desktop file as `org.wails.netbird.desktop` instead of `netbird.desktop` (both deb and rpm contents in .goreleaser_ui.yaml) - add `StartupWMClass=org.wails.netbird` to client/ui/build/linux/netbird.desktop `Icon=netbird` and the pixmaps/netbird.png payload are unchanged — they were already correct. Confirmed on the test VM that both the titlebar and taskbar/Alt-Tab now show the NetBird icon.
NetBird desktop UI (Wails3 + React)
Replaces client/ui (Fyne). One binary on Windows / macOS / Linux,
talks to the NetBird daemon over gRPC, renders a React frontend in a
WebView.
Prerequisites
- Go ≥ 1.25, Node ≥ 20, pnpm (
corepack enable && corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate) wails3CLI:go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v3/cmd/wails3@latesttask:go install github.com/go-task/task/v3/cmd/task@latest- A running NetBird daemon (default:
unix:///var/run/netbird.sock, Windowstcp://127.0.0.1:41731) - Linux only:
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev,libgtk-3-dev,libayatana-appindicator3-dev
Develop without rebuilding
cd client/ui
task dev
task dev runs Vite (port 9245) + the Go binary + a *.go watcher.
Frontend edits hot-reload instantly. Go edits trigger a rebuild and
relaunch. Pass daemon flags after --:
task dev -- --daemon-addr=tcp://127.0.0.1:41731
For pure UI work (no native window, fastest loop):
cd frontend && pnpm dev
Production build
task build
Output in bin/. Frontend assets are embedded into the binary.
Cross-compile Windows from Linux
Install the mingw-w64 toolchain once:
sudo apt install gcc-mingw-w64-x86-64 # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dnf install mingw64-gcc # Fedora
sudo pacman -S mingw-w64-gcc # Arch
Then:
CGO_ENABLED=1 task windows:build
Produces bin/netbird-ui.exe. macOS cross-compile from Linux is not
supported (signing and notarization need a real Mac).
Windows console build (logs in the terminal)
Default windows:build links the binary as a Windows GUI app, which
detaches from the launching console — logrus output, fmt.Println,
and panics go nowhere visible. To debug tray/event/daemon issues:
CGO_ENABLED=1 task windows:build:console
Produces bin/netbird-ui-console.exe. Run it from cmd.exe /
PowerShell / Windows Terminal and stdout/stderr land in that
terminal. Same flag works on a native Windows build (drop the
CGO_ENABLED=1 if your toolchain already has it set).
Regenerating bindings
When a Go service signature changes:
wails3 generate bindings
task dev does this automatically on *.go save.
Tray icons
Source SVGs live in assets/svg/ (state.svg + state-macos.svg). After editing
any SVG, rasterize to the PNGs the Go side embeds:
task common:generate:tray:icons
Requires Inkscape. Commit the resulting assets/*.png files alongside the
SVG change so CI doesn't need Inkscape installed.