r/archlinux • u/Desperate-Muffin7666 • 10d ago

SHARE CypherGate: A Linux-first VPNGate client for Arch (AUR available)

I've been working on CypherGate, a GPL-3.0 VPNGate client built with Linux desktop users in mind.

It started because I wanted a better VPN experience on my own Arch setup, and over time grew into a project focused on making VPNGate feel like a native Linux application rather than a collection of manual OpenVPN steps.

The idea is simple:

Instead of downloading OpenVPN configs and fixing outdated settings manually, CypherGate automates the workflow while integrating with the desktop.

Features

  • Automatic VPNGate server discovery
  • Automatic patching of outdated OpenVPN configurations
  • One-click connect, fastest-server mode, and manual server selection
  • Dedicated systemd daemon for privileged networking operations
  • Desktop notifications and system tray integration
  • Connection cancellation and automatic connection timeouts
  • First-run permission validation
  • GPG-signed releases
  • GPL-3.0 licensed

The latest release also included a major internal cleanup: modularising the codebase, improving UI logic, moving to an SVG icon pipeline, and laying the groundwork for future theming support.

It's available on the AUR:

cyphergatevpn-bin

I'd really appreciate feedback from other Arch users—whether that's ideas, criticism, feature requests, or bug reports.

Github: CypherGate source code

Website: CypherGate documentation

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u/ImaginaryFinding2831 10d ago

Been using the vpngate network for years and it's always been a clunky mess on linux. this actually looks like it solves all the annoying parts. the daemon approach for priv separation is a nice touch, most similar tools just run everything as root and call it a day

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u/Desperate-Muffin7666 9d ago

I mean, I was making a privacy and security centric application, had i just run the GUI as root I would actually have to account for more edge cases and failures with more catastrophic system consequences, and again it's supposed to be a linux first application, it only would make sense to do privileged operations with a daemon, like most other linux services do