install-service.ps1 created C:\ProgramData\fips without setting an ACL, so it inherited C:\ProgramData's access: any local user could read the node's identity key there, and could create a fips.yaml, fips.key, hosts, peers.allow or peers.deny in the directory before one existed, for the service, running as LocalSystem, to read. The service log is written there too. The installer now builds an ACL that grants only SYSTEM and Administrators and does not inherit, and creates a new directory with that ACL already applied, using the .NET call each PowerShell edition provides. Created first and restricted afterwards, the empty directory would carry C:\ProgramData's access in between, and any local user could turn it into a junction in that time with no privilege and without changing its owner. An existing directory is refused if it is a link or junction or is owned by an account other than SYSTEM, Administrators or the installing administrator, since a user who created it could swap it for a link to another directory. Otherwise the installer makes Administrators the owner, refuses the directory if it has since become a link and any link or folder inside it, applies the ACL, and resets the owner and ACL of each existing file. That check runs before the ACL is applied, because applying it rewrites the inherited entries of everything below the directory, and runs again after it and after the reset. Every icacls call acts on a link rather than its target and has its exit code checked. Files created in the directory later, by the service or fipsctl keygen, take the same ACL. Well-known SIDs are used so the step works on non-English Windows. A user who created the directory keeps full control of it through the entry C:\ProgramData's CREATOR OWNER grant leaves for their account, and taking ownership changes only the owner. So each refusal tells the operator to copy out anything needed and delete the directory, taking ownership only if that is what it takes to delete it, and an icacls failure says to delete the directory or the file, or simply retry if the file has gone. Packaging tests check the order of these steps and that they come before any path inside the directory is touched; that the ACL is built with both SIDs and both inheritance flags and passed to the directory's creation; the refusal conditions themselves (the owner test, the directory link test at the start and in each recheck, and a link or folder entry each refused on its own); that every icacls call acts on links and is checked; and that takeown is never offered as the recovery. The README and the fips reference say that reading the directory now needs an elevated prompt (an unelevated foreground run may skip the config there or fail with an access error), that the installer should run before fipsctl keygen, and that it should run again after files are moved into the directory, since a moved file keeps its old permissions.
FIPS Packaging
This directory contains packaging for all supported target platforms.
Most build outputs go to deploy/ at the project root; make ipk
and make apk write to dist/ instead.
Quick Start
make deb # Debian/Ubuntu .deb (built in the pinned container)
make tarball # systemd install tarball
make ipk # OpenWrt .ipk (opkg, OpenWrt 24.x and earlier)
make apk # OpenWrt .apk (apk-tools, mandatory on OpenWrt 25+)
make aur # Arch Linux AUR package (fips-git, local build + namcap)
make pkg # macOS .pkg installer
make freebsd # FreeBSD .pkg package (on FreeBSD; use gmake)
make zip # Windows .zip package
make all # deb + tarball (default)
The two Debian build paths
make deb builds in a container pinned to the oldest supported
distribution, named with the glibc floor in
build-floor.env, and checks the package it produced
against that floor before handing it back. Its only host prerequisite is
docker: the toolchain and the build dependencies live in the image. This
is the path the release workflow, the integration suite and the internal
builder all take, so a package that passes locally is built the way the
shipped one is.
make deb-host is the old path. It builds on the host, at whatever glibc
the host has, and it is checked against nothing. Use it for local
iteration only. A package built on a current distribution records a
version dependency that the loader refuses on Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04,
which is what shipped in every Linux artifact from v0.3.0 through v0.5.0,
so it must not produce anything anyone else installs.
Build Prerequisites
The prerequisites below apply to the host-build targets. make deb needs
docker and nothing else.
These targets build FIPS from source, so the host needs a build
environment in addition to a Rust toolchain (the version pinned in
rust-toolchain.toml is auto-installed by rustup).
On Linux, libclang is required: the LAN gateway's nftables
bindings are generated by bindgen at build time, which needs
libclang.so on the build host. Without it the build fails inside the
rustables crate with an "Unable to find libclang" error.
sudo apt install libclang-dev # Debian / Ubuntu
This is a build-time prerequisite only — it is not a runtime
dependency, so hosts installing a pre-built .deb do not need it.
BLE is not optional, and it is not universal either. build.rs sets
ble_available for glibc Linux or Android, which is the set of
platforms with a concrete backend: the transport is absent from musl
Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Windows builds entirely. On glibc Linux
libdbus-1-dev and pkg-config are hard build prerequisites: there is
no probe that skips BLE when they are missing. The BlueZ daemon is a
runtime dependency and is not needed to build.
Directory Structure
packaging/
aur/ Arch Linux AUR packaging (PKGBUILD, supporting files)
common/ Shared assets (default config, hosts file)
debian/ Debian/Ubuntu .deb packaging via cargo-deb
freebsd/ FreeBSD .pkg packaging via pkg-create(8)
macos/ macOS .pkg installer via pkgbuild
nixos/ NixOS flake module (services.fips.*)
systemd/ Generic Linux systemd tarball packaging
openwrt-ipk/ OpenWrt .ipk packaging via cargo-zigbuild (opkg)
openwrt-apk/ OpenWrt .apk packaging via cargo-zigbuild + apk mkpkg
windows/ Windows .zip package with service scripts
Formats
Debian/Ubuntu (.deb)
Built with cargo-deb. Installs
fips, fipsctl, fipstop, and fips-gateway to /usr/bin/, ships
the fips, fips-dns, fips-firewall, and fips-gateway systemd
units, and enables the fips and fips-dns services.
The default configuration ships as an example at
/usr/share/fips/fips.yaml.example and is not a dpkg conf-file.
(It is deliberately not under /usr/share/doc, which minimal and
container installs path-exclude, since the postinst reads it at install
time.)
On install, postinst seeds /etc/fips/fips.yaml (mode 600) from the
example only if it does not already exist, so a configuration that
was rendered by configuration management or edited by an operator is
never prompted for or clobbered on upgrade. To reset to defaults, remove
/etc/fips/fips.yaml and reinstall, or copy the example back manually.
# Build
make deb
# Install
sudo dpkg -i deploy/fips_<version>_<arch>.deb
# Remove (preserves config and keys)
sudo dpkg -r fips
# Purge (removes config and identity keys)
sudo dpkg -P fips
systemd Tarball
A self-contained tarball with binaries and an install.sh script for
any systemd-based Linux distribution.
# Build
make tarball
# Install (on target host)
tar -xzf deploy/fips-<version>-linux-<arch>.tar.gz
sudo ./fips-<version>-linux-<arch>/install.sh
See systemd/README.install.md for full installation and configuration instructions.
OpenWrt (.ipk, opkg — OpenWrt 24.x and earlier)
Cross-compiled with cargo-zigbuild and assembled as a standard .ipk
archive. Supports aarch64, mipsel, mips, arm, and x86_64 targets.
# Build (default: aarch64)
make ipk
# Build for a specific architecture
bash packaging/openwrt-ipk/build-ipk.sh --arch mipsel
See openwrt-ipk/README.md for router-specific installation instructions.
OpenWrt (.apk, apk-tools — mandatory on OpenWrt 25+)
OpenWrt 25 makes apk-tools the mandatory package manager (it is opt-in on
24.10). Same SDK-free approach
(cargo-zigbuild), but the .apk container is assembled by apk mkpkg
rather than hand-rolled, so the build additionally needs an apk-tools v3
apk binary built from source. The installed-filesystem payload is shared
with the .ipk package.
# Build (default: aarch64; also x86_64)
make apk
# Build for a specific architecture
bash packaging/openwrt-apk/build-apk.sh --arch x86_64
Packages are unsigned; install with apk add --allow-untrusted. See
openwrt-apk/README.md for building apk-tools and
router-specific installation.
macOS (.pkg)
Built with pkgbuild (included with Xcode command-line tools). Installs
binaries to /usr/local/bin/, config to /usr/local/etc/fips/, sets up
the /etc/resolver/fips DNS resolver for .fips domains, and loads a
launchd daemon. The TUN device is named utun<N> (kernel-assigned)
rather than fips0.
# Build
make pkg
# Install
sudo installer -pkg deploy/fips-<version>-macos-<arch>.pkg -target /
# Remove
sudo packaging/macos/uninstall.sh
FreeBSD (.pkg)
Built natively on a FreeBSD host with pkg create. Ships fips,
fipsctl, and fipstop (fips-gateway is excluded — its NAT backend
is nftables, Linux-only), rc.d services, and .fips DNS integration
for local_unbound, unbound, or dnsmasq. Config installs
sample-style under /usr/local/etc/fips/ (edits survive upgrades).
# Build (on FreeBSD; this Makefile needs GNU make — pkg install gmake)
gmake freebsd
# or directly, no gmake needed:
./packaging/freebsd/build-pkg.sh
# Install
pkg add ./deploy/fips-<version>-freebsd-<arch>.pkg
sysrc fips_enable=YES fips_dns_enable=YES
service fips start
service fips_dns start
See freebsd/README.md for host resolver setup and field-tested caveats.
Windows (.zip)
A ZIP archive containing binaries, default config, and PowerShell service helper scripts. Requires the wintun driver for TUN support.
# Build
make zip
# Or directly
powershell -File packaging/windows/build-zip.ps1
# Extract and install as service (requires Administrator)
Expand-Archive deploy\fips-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip -DestinationPath fips
cd fips
powershell -File install-service.ps1
# Uninstall (preserves config)
powershell -File uninstall-service.ps1
# Uninstall and remove config
powershell -File uninstall-service.ps1 -RemoveAll
Arch Linux (AUR)
Two AUR packages are maintained: fips (release, builds from tagged
tarball) and fips-git (development, builds from latest git master).
# Build and validate locally (git variant)
make aur
# Install from AUR
yay -S fips-git # development build from master
yay -S fips # release build from latest tag
See aur/README.md for AUR publication instructions and maintainer guide.
Nix / NixOS (flake)
A flake at the project root builds all four binaries
(fips, fipsctl, fips-gateway, fipstop) from source. It pins the
exact toolchain from rust-toolchain.toml via
fenix and wires up the
build-time native dependencies (libclang for bindgen, plus dbus
and pkg-config for BLE), so it needs no system setup beyond Nix with
flakes enabled.
nix build .#fips # build the package (all four binaries)
nix run .#fips -- --help # run a binary directly
nix run .#fipsctl -- show status
nix develop # dev shell with the pinned toolchain + cargo-edit
nix flake check # build + validate the flake
The flake also exposes:
overlays.default— addspkgs.fipsto nixpkgsnixosModules.default— a NixOS module (packaging/nixos/) that providesservices.fips.enableand runs the daemon as a systemd service
As a package only (no service management):
environment.systemPackages = [ fips.packages.${system}.default ];
As a managed NixOS service (recommended — starts on boot, journalctl logs):
# flake.nix
{
inputs.fips = {
url = "github:jmcorgan/fips";
inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};
outputs = { self, nixpkgs, fips, ... }@inputs: {
nixosConfigurations.myhost = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
system = "x86_64-linux";
specialArgs = { inherit inputs; };
modules = [
./configuration.nix
fips.nixosModules.default
{ services.fips.enable = true; }
];
};
};
}
See packaging/nixos/README.md for the full option
reference (services.fips.enable, .package, .configFile,
.openFirewall).
Shared Assets
common/ contains assets used across packaging formats:
fips.yaml— default configuration (ephemeral identity, UDP/TCP/TUN/DNS)hosts— static hostname-to-npub mappings for.fipsDNS resolution