Fleet Desktop: Support SUSE Linux

[allenhouchins]

• @noahtalerman: User requested this because Fleet Desktop fails to launch in the system tray on openSUSE AArch64, despite successful Orbit installation and host enrollment. This is critical for visibility and functionality on Linux hosts using this distro/arch.
  • @noahtalerman: In the interim they manually ran Fleet Desktop with a full set of environment variables to successfully launch it on KDE Plasma (default). However, this workaround does not work in GNOME, and there are no logs at ~/.local/state/Fleet/ to debug the issue further.

@allenhouchins: Running this command allows Fleet Desktop to launch on KDE Plasma:

FLEET_DESKTOP_FLEET_URL=https://dogfood.fleetdm.com/ FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER_PATH=/opt/orbit/identifier FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_URL=https://dogfood.fleetdm.com/device/$GUID FLEET_DESKTOP_TUF_UPDATE_ROOT=/opt/orbit DISPLAY=:0 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/orbit/bin/desktop/linux-arm64/edge/fleet-desktop /opt/orbit/bin/desktop/linux-arm64/edge/fleet-desktop/fleet-desktop

Then, the My Device status indicator is in gray (not green or red)

This command does not work in GNOME.

~/.local/state/Fleet/ doesn't exist so I can't pull fleet-desktop.err or fleet-desktop.log logs.

orbit.log

• @allenhouchins: I don't think anyone is using KDE Plasma these days. GNOME is likely what their end users are running.

  • @noahtalerman : Eventually Fleet Desktop should reliably support launching in the system tray on GNOME and KDE for openSUSE AArch64. This may require ensuring proper environment detection, service registration, or system tray integration on these environments. Enhanced logging in the absence of the .state folder would also help with troubleshooting.

[noahtalerman]

FYI @allenhouchins transformed this to a feature request. Same reason as this related issue. We don't support SUSE Linux, yet!

[noahtalerman]

Here's the original issue description:

Fleet version: Latest

Web browser and operating system: openSUSE AArch64 (installer used: http://download.opensuse.org/ports/aarch64/factory/iso/openSUSE-Tumbleweed-DVD-aarch64-Current.iso)

---

💥  Actual behavior

Fleet installs and enrolls correctly but Fleet Desktop does not show up in the systray on SUSE. I ended up installing two separate VMs, one with KDE and one with GNOME for testing. Results below...

🧑‍💻  Steps to reproduce

1. Install openSUSE using the ISO linked above
2. Install and enroll Fleet
3. Notice Fleet Desktop never launches

🕯️ More info (optional)

Running this command allows Fleet Desktop to launch on KDE Plasma:

FLEET_DESKTOP_FLEET_URL=https://dogfood.fleetdm.com/ FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER_PATH=/opt/orbit/identifier FLEET_DESKTOP_DEVICE_URL=https://dogfood.fleetdm.com/device/$GUID FLEET_DESKTOP_TUF_UPDATE_ROOT=/opt/orbit DISPLAY=:0 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/orbit/bin/desktop/linux-arm64/edge/fleet-desktop /opt/orbit/bin/desktop/linux-arm64/edge/fleet-desktop/fleet-desktop

This command does not work in GNOME.

~/.local/state/Fleet/ doesn't exist so I can't pull fleet-desktop.err or fleet-desktop.log logs.

orbit.log

🛠️ To fix

[noahtalerman]

• @allenhouchins: I don't think anyone is using KDE Plasma these days. GNOME is likely what their end users are running.

@allenhouchins can you please sanity check this for us?

[allenhouchins]

Workaround for getting Fleet Desktop to work on OpenSUSE has been implemented in dogfood: https://github.com/fleetdm/fleet/pull/32757

[allenhouchins]

PR has been opened to address emoji rendering issue in Fleet Desktop: https://github.com/fleetdm/fleet/pull/32756

[lucasmrod]

@allenhouchins 1.48.1 has been released to stable. Worth giving it a try in OpenSUSE.

[allenhouchins]

@lucasmrod confirmed it works great!

[lucasmrod]

@allenhouchins Double checking: Do you still need hacks to make fleetd work in OpenSUSE? Or does installing it just works now?

[noahtalerman]

@allenhouchins up to you, as the requester, on whether we can close this request as done or leave it open if Fleet is still missing something.

[allenhouchins]

@lucasmrod Admins still need the GNOME extension policy and script found in the support article but this is the current expected behavior for other Linux distros so this should be fine for now: https://fleetdm.com/guides/fleet-desktop-on-fedora-and-debian#policy-and-script-execution

Do we have a FR tracking some way to include this extension or deploy without this requirement I can link to?

[lucasmrod]

Admins still need the GNOME extension policy and script found in the support article but this is the current expected behavior for other Linux distros so this should be fine for now: https://fleetdm.com/guides/fleet-desktop-on-fedora-and-debian#policy-and-script-execution

Ah gotcha. Same issue as Fedora or Debian. It's a GNOME thing (Ubuntu comes with the necessary extensions installed, but these other distros don't).

Do we have a FR tracking some way to include this extension or deploy without this requirement I can link to?

I don't believe we have a FR.

[lucasmrod]

I'll close this one as done given it was released to customers.

Admins still need the GNOME extension policy and script found in the support article but this is the current expected behavior for other Linux distros so this should be fine for now: https://fleetdm.com/guides/fleet-desktop-on-fedora-and-debian#policy-and-script-execution

@allenhouchins Could you open a separate issue for this? (that includes Fedora, openSUSE and Debian.) We would need some research to know what's possible. AFAICS even if we do it automatically in fleetd (without the need for a policy + script) it will prompt the end user for installation of the extension (for security/privacy reasons).

[fleet-release]

OpenSUSE support blooms, Fleet Desktop in system tray. A dawn for Linux hosts.