Portmaster Archlinux Install Failure

[Abyssgrowth]

Pre-Submit Checklist:

• Check applicable sources for existing issues:
  • Linux Compatibility
  • VPN Compatibility
  • Github Issues

What worked?

What did not work? Attempted installing portmaster on archlinux via the command: yay -S portmaster-stub-bin Error: I'm new to arch and have no clue what to do. How can i get portmaster up and running?

Debug Information:

[dhaavi]

It seems Portmaster is already installed on your system. Could that be the case? It says "portmaster-start exists in filesystem".

[Abyssgrowth]

It seems Portmaster is already installed on your system. Could that be the case? It says "portmaster-start exists in filesystem".

I'm not sure but when i search for portmaster there are no results for that term.

[Abyssgrowth]

On sainf.io/download i've noticed that the networkmanager is listed as optional. When i klick that link it forwards me to gnome, however arch seems to offer their own wiki for the networkmanager. I'm now confused on which guide to follow, are these the same packages?

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/NetworkManager https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NetworkManager

[Abyssgrowth]

Bump

Still need help here, portmaster is not installed on archlinux, what am i doing wrong?

[Abyssgrowth]

I can't seem to connect to the internet with the arch os anymore, not sure if that's related to the failed portmaster install. I would appriciate if someone here can help me get portmaster up and running on arch.

[archerallstars]

@Abyssgrowth

I try installing the Ubuntu installer in distrobox, works without issues. I am on openSUSE Tumbleweed, though.

[Kaoticz]

@Abyssgrowth

You can check if Portmaster has been installed with the following command:

yay -Qs portmaster

If you get a response, that means you already have Portmaster installed. If that's the case, you can manually run it with the following command:

/opt/safing/portmaster/portmaster-start app --data=/opt/safing/portmaster

To get an entry for your desktop environment, you can then create a .desktop file with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Portmaster
GenericName=Application Firewall
Exec=/opt/safing/portmaster/portmaster-start app --data=/opt/safing/portmaster
Icon=portmaster
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=System

I hope this helps.

[Abyssgrowth]

@Abyssgrowth

You can check if Portmaster has been installed with the following command:

yay -Qs portmaster

If you get a response, that means you already have Portmaster installed. If that's the case, you can manually run it with the following command:

/opt/safing/portmaster/portmaster-start app --data=/opt/safing/portmaster

To get an entry for your desktop environment, you can then create a .desktop file with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Portmaster
GenericName=Application Firewall
Exec=/opt/safing/portmaster/portmaster-start app --data=/opt/safing/portmaster
Icon=portmaster
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=System

I hope this helps.

Thanks for helping, unfortunately when i enter the command you provided (yay -Qs portmaster) the terminal does not output anything, so i asume portmaster is not installed. I opened this issue months ago but haven't got portmaster running on arch since then, because no further help was provided. It might be incompatibility but i believe it's because i don't know how to install pormaster correctly on arch, i tried following the instructions but they should be more detailed, have the devs even tested if portmaster works on arch? I ask that because why did they mention incompatibilit then?

[Kaoticz]

@Abyssgrowth Well, it's not incompatibility because the package installed successfully on my Arch system. Well, somewhat. The experience was a bit bumpy as I had some weird issue where Portmaster was unable to download the intel file (apparently it was unable to resolve the address, so I had to manually add the IP and domain to my hosts file) and the Portmaster service fails to initialize at startup, so I have to do it manually, which is a bit of a nuisance.

Idk if these issues are particular to my setup or if they are caused by a flaw in the PKGBUILD, but it's definitely possible to install Portmaster in an Arch system. I agree with you that issues like this should not happen or should at the very least be documented with a possible fix (like the troubleshooting sections in many articles from the Arch Wiki).

Your situation is particularly odd because yay says you have Portmaster, yet the package is not installed. Did you previously install Portmaster, then removed it, then tried to install again? Or did you try to install Portmaster manually before trying with the PKGBUILD in the AUR?

[Abyssgrowth]

@Abyssgrowth Well, it's not incompatibility because the package installed successfully on my Arch system. Well, somewhat. The experience was a bit bumpy as I had some weird issue where Portmaster was unable to download the intel file (apparently it was unable to resolve the address, so I had to manually add the IP and domain to my hosts file) and the Portmaster service fails to initialize at startup, so I have to do it manually, which is a bit of a nuisance.

Idk if these issues are particular to my setup or if they are caused by a flaw in the PKGBUILD, but it's definitely possible to install Portmaster in an Arch system. I agree with you that issues like this should not happen or should at the very least be documented with a possible fix (like the troubleshooting sections in many articles from the Arch Wiki).

Your situation is particularly odd because yay says you have Portmaster, yet the package is not installed. Did you previously install Portmaster, then removed it, then tried to install again? Or did you try to install Portmaster manually before trying with the PKGBUILD in the AUR?

So far i remember i've only ever used yay -S portmaster-stub-bin to install portmaster and i did that serveral times since it didn't work. Einstein - trying the same thing over and over again is the definition of madness.

Guessing from your reply, portmaster + arch = currently not a good idea. Even i would be able to install portmaster on arch, if the only option to use it is by manualy starting it each time, i'm out. I want portmaster to boot upon systemstartup just like it works on windows. I'm still looking for the right linux distro for me and was told i should choose one of the main ones instead of a fork, so that's arch or debian or fedora? On which of those does portmaster work, work and being stable?

[Kaoticz]

@Abyssgrowth Welp, Arch ain't for the faint of heart. I'll still figure out how to automatically start it on boot, but atm this is very low on my priority list.

You could try what was suggested here and use Distrobox to install Portmaster. But honestly, I wish they just had a Flatpak, it would solve all those weird problems and make installation easy for everyone regardless of distro.

[Abyssgrowth]

@Abyssgrowth Welp, Arch ain't for the faint of heart. I'll still figure out how to automatically start it on boot, but atm this is very low on my priority list.

You could try what was suggested here and use Distrobox to install Portmaster. But honestly, I wish they just had a Flatpak, it would solve all those weird problems and make installation easy for everyone regardless of distro.

Alright, i would asume it the dev's job to help people out with issues. I've heared flatpak so many times now mentioned in relation to linux, what's the deal with it? Why would it make things easier and how exactly?

[Kaoticz]

@Abyssgrowth I don't want to elaborate too much, but you can consider Flatpak as a type of 'universal packaging system.' This means that packages designed for Flatpak should function on any Linux distro and come with built-in guarantees to ensure consistent performance, regardless of the underlying system. That's the essence of it. So, if the Portmaster developers were to create a Flatpak package (and assuming it has no issues), Portmaster would work flawlessly on any Linux system, eliminating the problems we encountered.

There are several Youtubers who explain what Flatpak is in-depth, if you want to learn more. But for the purpose of this bug report, we should keep discussion to the issue you raised in the first post. If you don't care to troubleshoot it, you should consider closing this issue instead.

[Abyssgrowth]

@Abyssgrowth I don't want to elaborate too much, but you can consider Flatpak as a type of 'universal packaging system.' This means that packages designed for Flatpak should function on any Linux distro and come with built-in guarantees to ensure consistent performance, regardless of the underlying system. That's the essence of it. So, if the Portmaster developers were to create a Flatpak package (and assuming it has no issues), Portmaster would work flawlessly on any Linux system, eliminating the problems we encountered.

There are several Youtubers who explain what Flatpak is in-depth, if you want to learn more. But for the purpose of this bug report, we should keep discussion to the issue you raised in the first post. If you don't care to troubleshoot it, you should consider closing this issue instead.

Troubleshooting, as a person who has almost no knownledge over linux, especially arch, nearly impossible. Rather what i'm questioning is that there must either be basically zero arch users that use portmaster because otherwise it would have been patched and work, or arch users do use portmaster and are on such a great skill level that they easily managed to get portmaster working without the need to open an issue on github, or the last option that seem logical would be that arch users dont even use portmaster because they have other programs and/or tools that act as a firewll and give them as much privacy and control over their os as portmaster would.

Hard to guess what is the most likely scenario.

[archerallstars]

Maybe, it's because Portmaster works with Distrobox(root container), that's why no one would ever want to debug the installation issues, especially, on Arch.

But then again, no one would ever want to use this instead of VPN if they were on unsupported platforms.

As an Arch user, your best bet is Distrobox. Install it using Ubuntu's root container. I think this method should be in an official installation doc unless Flatpak is ready to use for production.

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