Android GUI for tinc

[Vil Brekin]

Hi Ivo,

The higher battery drain is more or less expected, as the CPU has to
work to process encryption.

Concerning the execution rights, I had the same issue on sdcard.
That's why I've added ScriptsInterpreter option to tinc (no merged
upstream, thanks to Guus). You can see my example here:
http://tinc_gui.poirsouille.org/

I'd be interested in some logcats for the debug button issue. It's
even stranger if you're able to kill it with the stop button (meaning
the SIGKILL is sent to tinc) but SIGINT is not sent...

Thx,
V


2012/9/28 Ivo Smits <Ivo at ufo-net.nl>:
> Hi Vil,
>
> Thanks for your answers. By the way, I noticed my battery drains much faster
> when tinc is running? Not very surprising I guess, the traffic from the
> other nodes will probably keep the 3G connection active a lot more than
> usual.
>
> Ivo
>
> Op 26-9-2012 17:59, Vil Brekin schreef:
>>
>> 2012/9/25 Ivo Smits <Ivo at ufo-net.nl>:
>>
>>> Just a few comments:
>>> - After stopping tinc, stop button text does not always change back to
>>> start
>>
>> Seems to be a GUI refresh bug. Did you stop tincd via the stop button,
>> or killed it manually?
>
> If I stop tinc via the Stop button, the button text does not change. If I
> kill tincd manually (killall tincd), the button text changes to Start!
>
>>> - Buttons look awfully simple and unaligned ;-)
>>
>> As you can see, I'm far from being an experienced GUI developer, and
>> must tell this is not the most interesting part to me, as long as the
>> buttons work. But I should imrpove this anyway.
>
> I totally understand - don't worry about it.
>
>>> - debug button does not seem to make a difference?
>>
>> It sends signal to the tinc daemon to switch it to debug mode (level
>> 5), so only works when the daemon is started. I should as well disable
>> it when it's stopped to avoid confusion.
>
> Debug button does not change anything in the tincd output. Manually sending
> SIGINT to tincd does activate level 5 debug mode, so I think the signal is
> not sent. Tinc is running as root.
>
>>> - tinc is looking for /dev/net/tun while my phone only has /dev/tun
>>> (might
>>> be device specific? symlink or configuration directive fixes this)
>>
>> I personnaly use the "Device=/dev/tun" from the configuration file to
>> specify which file to use.
>
> Thanks, that works too. I don't know if it makes sense to change the default
> for android builds?
>
>>> - config file selection shows empty list for /data because /data is chmod
>>> 771 by default, perhaps you can work around this by reading the directory
>>> as
>>> root?
>>
>> Would be quite a pain, as I would have to parse command line results
>> to browse directories (as you can only start sub-processes with root
>> right, not get them on the main process).
>> Anyway I advise using a folder in /sdcard, so you can update it easily
>> from your computer.
>
> I see. I tried to use /sdcard first, but I couldn't set the permissions
> necessary to execute the tinc-up script (to configure the interface), so
> that didn't work for me. I changed the permissions on /data to be world
> readable.
>
>>> - I forgot that I had to use the tinc-up script for IP address
>>> configuration, my bad. You could perhaps create a nice GUI which creates
>>> the
>>> tinc-up script, tinc.conf and local node configuration/keys.
>>
>> I've been thinking about it, but it would be quite a lot of work as
>> well, and I'm not sure this is really useful to the
>>   tinc users: indeed, for me the easiest solution is still to build the
>> configuration on the target computer, and copy it on the phone.
>> BTW, it seems it's already scheduled to simplify tinc's configuration
>> process in future releases, so it might be a duplicate task...
>>
>>
>>> Anyway, I can now watch a live TV stream over the VPN via 3G on my phone.
>>> Great!
>>>
>>> Ivo
>>>
>>> Op 24-9-2012 17:03, Vil Brekin schreef:
>>>
>>>> Hi Adam,
>>>>
>>>> As for tinc on linux, you'll need a TUN/TAP device on android as well
>>>> (my app is just a basic GUI over the standard tinc daemon). I'm not
>>>> sure it's available on every ROM. I use CM9/10 on a SGS2, and the
>>>> driver is included in the kernel.
>>>> Same, you can disable root usage in the application (in the settings),
>>>> but it's probably needed to access the TUN/TAP device anyway...
>>>>
>>>> The GUI is minimalistic, and is mainly used to deploy the tincd binary
>>>> and launch/monitor it easily.
>>>> For the configuration, the easiest solution is to build it from a PC
>>>> and copy it to your phone's SD card.
>>>> This might not be easy enough for the average android user, however I
>>>> guess tinc's user are more in the geek category :)
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, any feedback is welcome to help me improving it.
>>>>
>>>> Rgds,
>>>> V
>>>>
>>>> 2012/9/24 Adam Del Vecchio <adam at adamdelvecchio.name>:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've just installed the app but have yet to use it. It seems
>>>>> functional,
>>>>> however. I will configure and report here later tonight.
>>>>>
>>>>> Will I need to specify a specific Device/Interface in order for it to
>>>>> work correctly on the Nexus 7?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Adam
>>>>>
>>>>> Vil Brekin <vilbrekin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As I was missing an Android port of tinc (thanks for this great
>>>>>> tool!), I built one by myself.
>>>>>> It's simply a cross-compiled version of tinc daemon (with very few
>>>>>> changes), and a (basic) GUI application for Android to deploy and
>>>>>> manage it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Both my changes to original tinc and the GUI are available on GitHub:
>>>>>> - https://github.com/Vilbrekin/tinc
>>>>>> - https://github.com/Vilbrekin/tinc_gui
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The tinc GUI is available on Google Play as well:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.poirsouille.tinc_gui&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsIm9yZy5wb2lyc291aWxsZS50aW5jX2d1aSJd
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My changes to original tinc being minimal (added ifdef for 2 missing
>>>>>> functions on Android NDK, and a new configuration file option), I was
>>>>>> thinking of merging them with upstream. Are you accepting pull
>>>>>> requests?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rgds,
>>>>>> V
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