GNS3 Flatpak package on Flathub

1

Hi,

I am the main developer of GNS3, a popular network emulator and I have a few questions regarding a potential addition to Flathub. GNS3 is basically divided in 2 components, one graphical interface and a server which need extended permissions to run multiple hypervisors like Qemu, Dynamips etc. as well as root privileges for network bridging (uBridge).

First, is GNS3 well-suited for Flatpak?

Second, what is the best way to distribute and run the GNS3 server? It appears only the graphical interface can be packaged with Flatpak. Detail of possible solutions for the server can found there: Flatpak by KastenKlicker · Pull Request #3843 · GNS3/gns3-gui · GitHub

Third, thanks to a contributor, we have a first version of the GNS3 GUI packaged with Flatpak (draft PR: Flatpak by KastenKlicker · Pull Request #3843 · GNS3/gns3-gui · GitHub ), but it depends on the --talk-name=org.freedesktop.Flatpak permission. Is this a no go for distributing on Flathub?

Thanks for your help in advance and sorry if my questions are too broad, I am not familiar with Flatpak/Flathub.

2

I think root privileges make it impossible to be packaged as Flatpak, or at least one published to Flathub. The GUI is fine, but as it can’t be standalone, you would need to make it display some window on the first startup explaining how to set it up with Docker/sysext.

3

We will then only publish the GUI and use something else to run the server. Thanks for your reply.