briar-gtk flatpak on librm5_devkit

here the (admitteldy hacky) steps to reproduce getting briar-gtk alpha flatpak to work on librm5_devkit aarch64

patched briar headless

cloned briar repo applied two patches:

+++ b/bramble-core/src/main/java/org/briarproject/bramble/plugin/tor/TorPlugin.java
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ abstract class TorPlugin implements DuplexPlugin, EventHandler, EventListener {
                // Load the settings
                settings = callback.getSettings();
                // Install or update the assets if necessary
-               if (!assetsAreUpToDate()) installAssets();
+               //if (!assetsAreUpToDate()) installAssets();
                if (cookieFile.exists() && !cookieFile.delete())
                        LOG.warning("Old auth cookie not deleted");
                // Start a new Tor process


+++ b/bramble-java/src/main/java/org/briarproject/bramble/plugin/tor/UnixTorPluginFactory.java
@@ -82,13 +82,13 @@ public class UnixTorPluginFactory implements DuplexPluginFactory {
        @Override
        public DuplexPlugin createPlugin(PluginCallback callback) {
                // Check that we have a Tor binary for this architecture
-               String architecture = null;
-               if (isLinux()) {
-                       String arch = System.getProperty("os.arch");
-                       if (arch.equals("amd64")) {
-                               architecture = "linux-x86_64";
-                       }
-               }
+               String architecture = "linux-aarch64";
+               //if (isLinux()) {
+               //      String arch = System.getProperty("os.arch");
+               //      if (arch.equals("amd64")) {
+               //              architecture = "linux-x86_64";
+               //      }
+               //}
                if (architecture == null) {
                        LOG.info("Tor is not supported on this architecture");
                        return null;

compiled briar-headless as also described in http://4g375hpowkjyopwa7c5lm7f4ovzhceezvscm342uklflfpl3mcxxhxyd.onion/briar_headless_on_librem5_devkit.html

briar-gtk build flatpak

git cloned: https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar-gtk git submodule update --init built flatpak as advertised via: flatpak-builder --install-deps-from=flathub --user --install --force-clean --ccache flatpak-builddir app.briar.gtk.json

run shell in flatpak container

flatpak run --command=sh app.briar.gtk

first replacing briar headless with the patched version for aarch64 cp /home/purism/dl/briar/briar-headless/build/libs/briar-headless.jar /home/purism/.local/share/flatpak/app/app.briar.gtk/aarch64/master/active/files/briar/briar-headless.jar

starting briar headless inside the flatpak java -jar /app/briar/briar-headless.jar

which complains about the not visible (from flatpak perspective) distro tor dependencies. so copy dependencies into flatpak as well:

libevent-2.1.so.6: cp /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libevent-2.1.so.6.0.2 /home/purism/.local/share/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/aarch64/3.36/active/files/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libevent-2.1.so.6

libzstd.so.1: cp /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1.3.8 /home/purism/.local/share/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/aarch64/3.36/active/files/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libzstd.so.1

with that briar-headless runs fine.

briar-gtk python key error

python key error, so I disabled the two lines of code:

remove/comment-out lines 30 and 31 of /home/purism/.local/share/flatpak/app/app.briar.gtk/aarch64/master/active/files/lib/python3.7/site-packages/briar_wrapper/models/contacts.py

changed the description

added Document label

@fphemeral what does System.getProperty("os.arch") return on the dev kit?

(Asking because I'd like to the get the arm and aarch64 binaries included in briar-headless.jar so we can use an unpatched jar on the dev kit.)

@akwizgran that would be great!!

where/how would I enter System.getProperty("os.arch") ?

If I ask Python via the built-in platform module I get:

import platform
platform.architecture() # returns ('64bit', 'ELF')
platform.machine()      # returns 'aarch64'

..not sure this is equivalent information. (?)

@nicoalt thank you for the instructions. the following:

Arch.java:

public class Arch {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(System.getProperty("os.arch"));
    }
}

javac Arch.java

java Arch

@akwizgran gives me: aarch64

@akwizgran I got PostmarketOS running on an old Google Nexus 5 which has the architecture armv7l. If it's not too much work, maybe we could include that architecture, too, and see what other popular arm architectures are out there.

Happy to give that a try @nicoalt. Or if you want to take a look at my changes to add support for aarch64, maybe you could give it a try

https://code.briarproject.org/briar/tor-reproducer/-/tree/tor-0.3.5.11

https://code.briarproject.org/briar/go-reproducer/-/tree/add-linux-aarch64

For the Raspberry Pi, I'm not clear about whether we need a specially built toolchain, or whether we can use a normal gcc cross-compiler and the dedicated toolchains are just made available for convenience. If we can use a normal cross-compiler it should be easy enough to add support.

@fphemeral the tor-0.3.5.11 branch includes Tor and obfs4proxy binaries for Linux aarch64. Would you mind testing it on the Librem 5 dev kit? If it works I'll open merge requests for the respective branches.

added S: diagnosed label

I created briar#1854 (closed) to track this, since it isn't really related to Briar GTK.

closed

mentioned in issue briar#1854 (closed)