move static files into static sub-dir, refactor nix a bit

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----
-title: >-
-    Building Mobile Nebula
-description: >-
-    Getting my hands dirty with Android development.
-series: nebula
-tags: tech
----
-
-This post is going to be cheating a bit. I want to start working on adding DNS
-resolver configuration to the [mobile nebula][mobile_nebula] app (if you don't
-know nebula, [check it out][nebula], it's well worth knowing about), but I also
-need to write a blog post for this week, so I'm combining the two exercises.
-This post will essentially be my notes from my progress on today's task.
-
-(Protip: listen to [this][heilung] while following along to achieve the proper
-open-source programming aesthetic.)
-
-The current mobile nebula app works very well, but it is lacking one major
-feature: the ability to specify custom DNS resolvers. This is important because
-I want to be able to access resources on my nebula network by their hostname,
-not their IP. Android does everything in its power to make DNS configuration
-impossible, and essentially the only way to actually accomplish this is by
-specifying the DNS resolvers within the app. I go into more details about why
-Android is broken [here][dns_issue].
-
-## Setup
-
-Before I can make changes to the app I need to make sure I can correctly build
-it in the first place, so that's the major task for today. The first step to
-doing so is to install the project's dependencies. As described in the
-[mobile_nebula][mobile_nebula] README, the dependencies are:
-
-- [`flutter`](https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install)
-- [`gomobile`](https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gomobile)
-- [`android-studio`](https://developer.android.com/studio)
-- [Enable NDK](https://developer.android.com/studio/projects/install-ndk)
-
-It should be noted that as of writing I haven't used any of these tools ever,
-and have only done a small amount of android programming, probably 7 or 8 years
-ago, so I'm going to have to walk the line between figuring out problems on the
-fly and not having to completely learning these entire ecosystems; there's only
-so many hours in a weekend, after all.
-
-I'm running [Archlinux][arch] so I install android-studio and flutter by
-doing:
-
-```bash
-yay -Sy android-studio flutter
-```
-
-And I install `gomobile`, according to its [documentation][gomobile] via:
-
-```bash
-go get golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gomobile
-gomobile init
-```
-
-Now I startup android-studio and go through the setup wizard for it. I choose
-standard setup because customized setup doesn't actually offer any interesting
-options. Next android-studio spends approximately two lifetimes downloading
-dependencies while my eyesight goes blurry because I'm drinking my coffee too
-fast.
-
-It's annoying that I need to install these dependencies, especially
-android-studio, in order to build this project. A future goal of mine is to nix
-this whole thing up, and make a build pipeline where you can provide a full
-nebula configuration file and it outputs a custom APK file for that specific
-config; zero configuration required at runtime. This will be useful for
-lazy/non-technical users who want to be part of the nebula network.
-
-Once android-studio starts up I'm not quite done yet: there's still the NDK
-which must be enabled. The instructions given by the link in
-[mobile_nebula][mobile_nebula]'s README explain doing this pretty well, but it's
-important to install the specific version indicated in the mobile_nebula repo
-(`21.0.6113669` at time of writing). Only another 1GB of dependency downloading
-to go....
-
-While waiting for the NDK to download I run `flutter doctor` to make sure
-flutter is working, and it gives me some permissions errors. [This blog
-post][flutter_blog] gives some tips on setting up, and after running the
-following...
-
-```bash
-sudo groupadd flutterusers
-sudo gpasswd -a $USER flutterusers
-sudo chown -R :flutterusers /opt/flutter
-sudo chmod -R g+w /opt/flutter/
-newgrp flutterusers
-```
-
-... I'm able to run `flutter doctor`. It gives the following output:
-
-```
-[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 1.22.6, on Linux, locale en_US.UTF-8)
- 
-[!] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 30.0.3)
-    ✗ Android licenses not accepted.  To resolve this, run: flutter doctor --android-licenses
-[!] Android Studio
-    ✗ Flutter plugin not installed; this adds Flutter specific functionality.
-    ✗ Dart plugin not installed; this adds Dart specific functionality.
-[!] Connected device
-    ! No devices available
-
-! Doctor found issues in 3 categories.
-```
-
-The first issue is easily solved as per the instructions given. The second is
-solved by finding the plugin manager in android-studio and installing the
-flutter plugin (which installs the dart plugin as a dependency, we call that a
-twofer).
-
-After installing the plugin the doctor command still complains about not finding
-the plugins, but the above mentioned blog post indicates to me that this is
-expected. It's comforting to know that the problems indicated by the doctor may
-or may not be real problems.
-
-The [blog post][flutter_blog] also indicates that I need `openjdk-8` installed,
-so I do:
-
-```bash
-yay -S jdk8-openjdk
-```
-
-And use the `archlinux-java` command to confirm that that is indeed the default
-version for my shell. The [mobile_nebula][mobile_nebula] helpfully expects an
-`env.sh` file to exist in the root, so if openjdk-8 wasn't already the default I
-could make it so within that file.
-
-## Build
-
-At this point I think I'm ready to try actually building an APK. Thoughts and
-prayers required. I run the following in a terminal, since for some reason the
-`Build > Flutter > Build APK` dropdown button in android-studio did nothing.
-
-```
-flutter build apk
-```
-
-It takes quite a while to run, but in the end it errors with:
-
-```
-make: 'mobileNebula.aar' is up to date.
-cp: cannot create regular file '../android/app/src/main/libs/mobileNebula.aar': No such file or directory
-
-FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
-
-* Where:
-Build file '/tmp/src/mobile_nebula/android/app/build.gradle' line: 95
-
-* What went wrong:
-A problem occurred evaluating project ':app'.
-> Process 'command './gen-artifacts.sh'' finished with non-zero exit value 1
-
-* Try:
-Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output. Run with --scan to get full insights.
-
-* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org
-
-BUILD FAILED in 1s
-Running Gradle task 'bundleRelease'...
-Running Gradle task 'bundleRelease'... Done                         1.7s
-Gradle task bundleRelease failed with exit code 1
-```
-
-I narrow down the problem to the `./gen-artifacts.sh` script in the repo's root,
-which takes in either `android` or `ios` as an argument. Running it directly
-as `./gen-artifacts.sh android` results in the same error:
-
-```bash
-make: 'mobileNebula.aar' is up to date.
-cp: cannot create regular file '../android/app/src/main/libs/mobileNebula.aar': No such file or directory
-```
-
-So now I gotta figure out wtf that `mobileNebula.aar` file is. The first thing I
-note is that not only is that file not there, but the `libs` directory it's
-supposed to be present in is also not there. So I suspect that there's a missing
-build step somewhere.
-
-I search for the string `mobileNebula.aar` within the project using
-[ag][silver_searcher] and find that it's built by `nebula/Makefile` as follows:
-
-```make
-mobileNebula.aar: *.go
-	gomobile bind -trimpath -v --target=android
-```
-
-So that file is made by `gomobile`, good to know! Additionally the file is
-actually there in the `nebula` directory, so I suspect there's just a missing
-build step to move it into `android/app/src/main/libs`. Via some more `ag`-ing I
-find that the code which is supposed to move the `mobileNebula.aar` file is in
-the `gen-artifacts.sh` script, but that script doesn't create the `libs` folder
-as it ought to. I apply the following diff:
-
-```bash
-diff --git a/gen-artifacts.sh b/gen-artifacts.sh
-index 601ed7b..4f73b4c 100755
---- a/gen-artifacts.sh
-+++ b/gen-artifacts.sh
-@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ if [ "$1" = "ios" ]; then
- elif [ "$1" = "android" ]; then
-   # Build nebula for android
-   make mobileNebula.aar
--  rm -rf ../android/app/src/main/libs/mobileNebula.aar
-+  mkdir -p ../android/app/src/main/libs
-   cp mobileNebula.aar ../android/app/src/main/libs/mobileNebula.aar
-
- else
-```
-
-(The `rm -rf` isn't necessary, since a) that file is about to be overwritten by
-the subsequent `cp` whether or not it's there, and b) it's just deleting a
-single file so the `-rf` is an unnecessary risk).
-
-At this point I re-run `flutter build apk` and receive a new error. Progress!
-
-```
-A problem occurred evaluating root project 'android'.
-> A problem occurred configuring project ':app'.
-   > Removing unused resources requires unused code shrinking to be turned on. See http://d.android.com/r/tools/shrink-resources.html for more information.
-```
-
-I recall that in the original [mobile_nebula][mobile_nebula] README it mentions
-to run the `flutter build` command with the `--no-shrink` option, so I try:
-
-```bash
-flutter build apk --no-shrink
-```
-
-Finally we really get somewhere. The command takes a very long time to run as it
-downloads yet more dependencies (mostly android SDK stuff from the looks of it),
-but unfortunately still errors out:
-
-```
-Execution failed for task ':app:processReleaseResources'.
-> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':app:releaseRuntimeClasspath'.
-   > Failed to transform mobileNebula-.aar (:mobileNebula:) to match attributes {artifactType=android-compiled-dependencies-resources, org.gradle.status=integration}.
-      > Execution failed for AarResourcesCompilerTransform: /home/mediocregopher/.gradle/caches/transforms-2/files-2.1/735fc805916d942f5311063c106e7363/jetified-mobileNebula.
-         > /home/mediocregopher/.gradle/caches/transforms-2/files-2.1/735fc805916d942f5311063c106e7363/jetified-mobileNebula/AndroidManifest.xml
-```
-
-Time for more `ag`-ing. I find the file `android/app/build.gradle`, which has
-the following block:
-
-```
-    implementation (name:'mobileNebula', ext:'aar') {
-        exec {
-            workingDir '../../'
-            environment("ANDROID_NDK_HOME", android.ndkDirectory)
-            environment("ANDROID_HOME", android.sdkDirectory)
-            commandLine './gen-artifacts.sh', 'android'
-        }
-    }
-```
-
-I never set up the `ANDROID_HOME` or `ANDROID_NDK_HOME` environment variables,
-and I suppose that if I'm running the flutter command outside of android-studio
-there wouldn't be a way for flutter to know those values, so I try setting them
-within my `env.sh`:
-
-```bash
-export ANDROID_HOME=~/Android/Sdk
-export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=~/Android/Sdk/ndk/21.0.6113669
-```
-
-Re-running the build command still results in the same error. But it occurs to
-me that I probably had built the `mobileNebula.aar` without those set
-previously, so maybe it was built with the wrong NDK version or something. I
-tried deleting `nebula/mobileNebula.aar` and try building again. This time...
-new errors! Lots of them! Big ones and small ones!
-
-At this point I'm a bit fed up, and want to try a completely fresh build. I back
-up my modified `env.sh` and `gen-artifacts.sh` files, delete the `mobile_nebula`
-repo, re-clone it, reinstall those files, and try building again. This time just
-a single error:
-
-```
-Execution failed for task ':app:lintVitalRelease'.
-> Could not resolve all artifacts for configuration ':app:debugRuntimeClasspath'.
-   > Failed to transform libs.jar to match attributes {artifactType=processed-jar, org.gradle.libraryelements=jar, org.gradle.usage=java-runtime}.
-      > Execution failed for JetifyTransform: /tmp/src/mobile_nebula/build/app/intermediates/flutter/debug/libs.jar.
-         > Failed to transform '/tmp/src/mobile_nebula/build/app/intermediates/flutter/debug/libs.jar' using Jetifier. Reason: FileNotFoundException, message: /tmp/src/mobile_nebula/build/app/intermediates/flutter/debug/libs.jar (No such file or directory). (Run with --stacktrace for more details.)
-           Please file a bug at http://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=460323.
-```
-
-So that's cool, apparently there's a bug with flutter and I should file a
-support ticket? Well, probably not. It seems that while
-`build/app/intermediates/flutter/debug/libs.jar` indeed doesn't exist in the
-repo, `build/app/intermediates/flutter/release/libs.jar` _does_, so this appears
-to possibly be an issue in declaring which build environment is being used.
-
-After some googling I found [this flutter issue][flutter_issue] related to the
-error. Tldr: gradle's not playing nicely with flutter. Downgrading could help,
-but apparently building with the `--debug` flag also works. I don't want to
-build a release version anyway, so this sits fine with me. I run...
-
-```bash
-flutter build apk --no-shrink --debug
-```
-
-And would you look at that, I got a result!
-
-```
-✓ Built build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk.
-```
-
-## Install
-
-Building was probably the hard part, but I'm not totally out of the woods yet.
-Theoretically I could email this apk to my phone or something, but I'd like
-something with a faster turnover time; I need `adb`.
-
-I install `adb` via the `android-tools` package:
-
-```bash
-yay -S android-tools
-```
-
-Before `adb` will work, however, I need to turn on USB debugging on my phone,
-which I do by following [this article][usb_debugging]. Once connected I confirm
-that `adb` can talk to my phone by doing:
-
-```bash
-adb devices
-```
-
-And then, finally, I can install the apk:
-
-```
-adb install build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk
-```
-
-NOT SO FAST! MORE ERRORS!
-
-```
-adb: failed to install build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE: Package net.defined.mobile_nebula signatures do not match previously installed version; ignoring!]
-```
-
-I'm guessing this is because I already have the real nebula app installed. I
-uninstall it and try again.
-
-AND IT WORKS!!! FUCK YEAH!
-
-```
-Performing Streamed Install
-Success
-```
-
-I can open the nebula app on my phone and it works... fine. There's some
-pre-existing networks already installed, which isn't the case for the Play Store
-version as far as I can remember, so I suspect those are only there in the
-debugging build. Unfortunately the presence of these test networks causes the
-app the throw a bunch of errors because it can't contact those networks. Oh well.
-
-The presence of those test networks, in a way, is actually a good thing, as it
-means there's probably already a starting point for what I want to do: building
-a per-device nebula app with a config preloaded into it.
-
-## Further Steps
-
-Beyond continuing on towards my actual goal of adding DNS resolvers to this app,
-there's a couple of other paths I could potentially go down at this point.
-
-* As mentioned, nixify the whole thing. I'm 99% sure the android-studio GUI
-  isn't actually needed at all, and I only used it for installing the CMake and
-  NDK plugins because I didn't bother to look up how to do it on the CLI.
-
-* Figuring out how to do a proper release build would be great, just for my own
-  education. Based on the [flutter issue][flutter_issue] it's possible that all
-  that's needed is to downgrade gradle, but maybe that's not so easy.
-
-* Get an android emulator working so that I don't have to install to my phone
-  everytime I want to test the app out. I'm not sure if that will also work for
-  the VPN aspect of the app, but it will at least help me iterate on UI changes
-  faster.
-
-But at this point I'm done for the day, I'll continue on this project some other
-time.
-
-[mobile_nebula]: https://github.com/DefinedNet/mobile_nebula
-[nebula]: https://slack.engineering/introducing-nebula-the-open-source-global-overlay-network-from-slack/
-[dns_issue]: https://github.com/DefinedNet/mobile_nebula/issues/9
-[arch]: https://archlinux.org/
-[android_wiki]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Android#Making_/opt/android-sdk_group-writeable
-[heilung]: https://youtu.be/SMJ7pxqk5d4?t=220
-[flutter_blog]: https://www.rockyourcode.com/how-to-get-flutter-and-android-working-on-arch-linux/
-[gomobile]: https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gomobile
-[silver_searcher]: https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher
-[flutter_issue]: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/58247
-[usb_debugging]: https://www.droidviews.com/how-to-enable-developer-optionsusb-debugging-mode-on-devices-with-android-4-2-jelly-bean/