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Custom third party binaries for the Mullvad VPN app

This repository holds our custom binaries and build scripts for third party software we need to bundle with the Mullvad VPN app: OpenVPN for our target platforms, libmnl and libnftnl for Linux, and Wintun and WireGuardNT for Windows.

Security and integrity

This repository should conform to the same integrity standards as the main Mullvad VPN app repository, meaning that every merge commit has to be signed.

This repository contains a number of submodules, pulling in the source code for the third party software we store the binaries for. These submodules must point to commits that are either directly signed or has a signed tag attached to them. Upon moving a submodule to a different commit, the new commit must be cryptographically verified.

Container image

The easiest way to build the binaries is by using the container image specified by Dockerfile:

podman build . -t mullvadvpn-app-binaries

OpenVPN

The openvpn submodule is tracking our mullvad-patches branch that contain a few custom changes needed by the Mullvad VPN app.

Updating OpenVPN

When bumping the submodule (rebasing mullvad-patches) to a new OpenVPN release. Make sure the upstream release tag is properly signed by the following gpg key:

B62E6A2B4E56570B7BDC6BE01D829EFECA562812

Then tag the new head of mullvad-patches as <original tag name>-mullvad, for example v2.4.8-mullvad. This tag should be signed and pushed to our fork repository.

Repeat the process above for the openvpn-build. Note: The upstream tags are not signed in openvpn-build.

Building on macOS

Before building, one has to ensure that the build host has all the required dependencies installed:

brew install automake autoconf libtool pkg-config

Building the OpenVPN binary should be as simple as running:

make openvpn TARGET="aarch64-apple-darwin"

or

make openvpn TARGET="x86_64-apple-darwin"

depending on the desired target architecture.

Building on Linux

Simply run ./container-run.sh make openvpn.

ARM64

Cross-compile on x64 Linux by setting the appropriate TARGET:

./container-run.sh make openvpn TARGET="aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu"

Building for Windows

Building openvpn.exe for Windows is done by cross-compiling from Linux using the container image:

  1. Compile:

    ./container-run.sh make openvpn_windows

  2. Sign openvpn.exe - Do this by copying openvpn.exe to the Windows machine with the certificate and run the following in powershell:

    signtool sign /tr http://timestamp.digicert.com /td sha256 /fd sha256 \
    /d "Mullvad VPN" \
    /du "https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app#readme" \
    /f the_certificate.pfx \
    /p <the_certificate.pfx password> \
    openvpn.exe

OpenSSL

OpenSSL is a transitive dependency for OpenVPN. When bumping the submodule to a new OpenSSL release. Make sure to only point to a release tag, and not a random commit. Also verify that said tag is properly signed by one of the keys listed here: https://www.openssl.org/community/otc.html

apisocks5

This is a small SOCKS5 proxy designed to be used in conjunction with the Mullvad VPN app for accessing the Mullvad API from restricted locations. See mullvad/apisocks5.

Build instructions:

# on linux (x86_64)
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu"
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="x86_64-pc-windows-msvc"
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="aarch64-pc-windows-msvc"
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="x86_64-apple-darwin"
./container-run.sh make apisocks5 TARGET="aarch64-apple-darwin"

When bumping the submodule to a new apisocks5 release. Make sure to only point to a release tag, and not a random commit. Also verify that said tag is properly signed by a trusted party at Mullvad.

Windows

apisocks5.exe must be signed before being committed to this repository:

signtool sign \
   /tr http://timestamp.digicert.com \
   /td sha256 /fd sha256 \
   /sha1 "<certificate-sha1-thumbprint>" \
   /v apisocks5.dll

signtool is available in the Windows SDK.

libmnl and libnftnl

These libraries are only required for Linux and are required by our app to apply firewall rules. To produce the required libraries, run ./container-run.sh make libnftnl.

ARM64

Cross-compile both libraries on x64 Linux by setting the appropriate TARGET:

./container-run.sh make libnftnl TARGET="aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu"

libnl

libnl is a dependency of OpenVPN, specifically DCO on Linux. When bumping the submodule, point to a release tag, and verify that the tag is signed by 49EA7C670E0850E7419514F629C2366E4DFC5728.

Updating Wintun

Only applicable to Windows.

Wintun is found in .\<arch>-pc-windows-msvc\wintun\wintun.dll. The driver can be downloaded and verified by running the script .\wireguard\download-wintun.cmd. This script downloads Wintun, verifies its checksum, and makes sure that wintun.dll is correctly signed.

WireGuardNT

Only applicable to Windows.

WireGuardNT can be found in .\<arch>-pc-windows-msvc\wireguard-nt. The wireguard-nt submodule contains a fork that fixes multihop tunnels. To update it, pull the new tag from https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-nt, manually verify that the changes are sensible, and rebase the mullvad-patches-build branch on top of it. The new head of mullvad-patches-build should be tagged as <original tag name>-mullvad, for example 0.7-mullvad. This tag should be signed and pushed to the fork repository.

Follow the instructions in MULLVAD_BUILD.md in said submodule to build and sign the driver.

Split tunnel driver

Only applicable to Windows.

The split tunneling functionality implemented in Mullvad VPN app is supported by a custom kernel driver. The driver is developed by us, and is represented here as a submodule named win-split-tunnel.

Instructions for building and signing the driver are provided in said submodule.

The built and signed driver, and associated files, reside under <arch>\split-tunnel.

Storage of binaries

This repository, apart from having the scripts used to build OpenVPN, also holds the built binaries for the platforms we need. These exist under directories named after the target triplet they are intended for.