Using firejail from git

There are different reasons why you would want to install firejail from its git source. You want to have the latest profiles and features, and/or you want to contribute to firejail.

Makefile
Arch Linux
Debian/Ubuntu
Fedora

Makefile

The easiest way to install firejail from git is to clone the repo and use the 'traditional' configure+make steps to build and install it:

git clone https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git
cd firejail
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install-strip

See ./configure --help for additional flags like --enable-apparmor or --enable-selinux.

Note that git clone gets you a local copy of an existing remote repository. In order to update that local copy with new commits from the repository you can use git pull:

cd firejail
git pull
./configure --prefix=/usr 
make
sudo make install-strip

Some more lines can be added to implement hardening measures as explained here:

sudo sed -i 's/# force-nonewprivs no/force-nonewprivs yes/' /etc/firejail/firejail.config

sudo groupadd firejail
sudo chown -c root:firejail /usr/bin/firejail
sudo chmod -c 4750 /usr/bin/firejail
sudo usermod -a -G firejail $USER

sudo firecfg

If you want to explicitly exclude some applications from being sandboxed by Firejail you can add something like:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/VirtualBox

If you ever want to uninstall firejail, run sudo make uninstall in your local copy of the repository.

Pros

simple
works on any distro

Cons

it is generally disadvised to bypass your package manager when installing software
WARNING: make install overwrites firejail.config
needs frequent rebuilding (using ccache can significantly speed-up the build process)
occasionally things might break
uninstalling can be complicated if you delete the repo or run ./configure with other flags

Arch Linux

The AUR firejail-git package enables AppArmor by default.

Debian/Ubuntu

Prepare your build environment

You will always need to install git and gcc compiler.

For AppArmor support (default in Ubuntu since v7), installing libapparmor-dev and pkg-config are required:

$ sudo apt-get install git build-essential libapparmor-dev pkg-config

For SELinux support (uncommon), installing libselinux1-dev and pkg-config are required:

$ sudo apt-get install git build-essential libselinux1-dev pkg-config

Full manual setup (installed files will not be manageable via apt or GUI frontends)

With AppArmor:

$ git clone https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git
$ cd firejail
$ ./configure --enable-apparmor --prefix=/usr && make && sudo make install-strip

With SELinux:

$ git clone https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git
$ cd firejail
$ ./configure --enable-selinux --prefix=/usr && make && sudo make install-strip

Scripted setup (create and install deb file)

Copy update_deb.sh script from contrib to a local directory and make it executable. The script enables AppArmor support by default and installs the firejail deb file via dpkg. If you need/want other configuration options, edit the script accordingly. You can use this script for updating your firejail from git installation.

Fedora

maintained by @rusty-snake

Fedora uses rpm packages to install software, it also uses SELinux by default. That's why we want to build an rpm and enable SELinux-labeling support in firejail.

First you need to install some packages to build the rpm and clone the firejail git-repo:

$ sudo install rpmbuild libselinux-devel
$ git clone "https://github.com/netblue30/firejail.git" firejail

You also need a spec file for firejail.

firejail.spec example

Name:           firejail
Version:        0.9.63
Release:        1.gitbc3f74f2%{?dist}
Summary:        Linux namespaces sandbox program

License:        GPLv2+
URL:            https://github.com/netblue30/firejail
Source0:        %{name}.tar.gz

Recommends:     xdg-dbus-proxy
BuildRequires:  libselinux-devel

%description
Firejail is a SUID sandbox program that reduces the risk of security
breaches by restricting the running environment of untrusted applications
using Linux namespaces. It includes a sandbox profile for Mozilla Firefox.


%prep
%autosetup -c


%build
%configure --enable-selinux
%make_build


%install
make install-strip DESTDIR=%{buildroot}


%files
%config(noreplace) %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/firejail.config
%config(noreplace) %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/login.users
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.inc
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.net
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.profile
%{_bindir}/firecfg
%{_bindir}/firejail
%{_bindir}/firemon
%{_libdir}/firejail
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firejail
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firecfg
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firemon
%{_docdir}/firejail/COPYING
%{_docdir}/firejail/README
%{_docdir}/firejail/RELNOTES
%{_docdir}/firejail/profile.template
%{_docdir}/firejail/redirect_alias-profile.template
%{_docdir}/firejail/syscalls.txt
%{_mandir}/man1/firecfg.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man1/firejail.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man1/firemon.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-login.5.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-profile.5.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-users.5.gz
%{_datadir}/vim/vimfiles/ftdetect/firejail.vim
%{_datadir}/vim/vimfiles/syntax/firejail.vim
%license COPYING

In order to build an rpm you need some directories, which you can create using rpmdev-setuptree; but we are going to setup these directories in a custom location.

TOPDIR=$(mktemp -dt firejail-build.XXXXXX)
BUILDDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_builddir)
RPMDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_rpmdir)
SOURCEDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_sourcedir)
SPECDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_specdir)
SRPMDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_srcrpmdir)

mkdir -p "$BUILDDIR" "$RPMDIR" "$SOURCEDIR" "$SPECDIR" "$SRPMDIR"

This creates a directory named firejail-build.XXXXXX (where the Xs are random) under $TMPDIR or /tmp as fallback. The sub-directories will be created in accordance with the corresponding rpm macros.

You can now create the spec file in $SPECDIR and produce a tar.gz archive containing the source-code.

$ tar --exclude-vcs-ignore --exclude="./.git" --exclude="./test" --create --gzip --file "$SOURCEDIR/firejail.tar.gz" .

Start building the rpm:

$ rpmbuild --nodebuginfo --quiet --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" -bb "$SPECDIR"/firejail.spec

Install the firejail rpm package:

$ sudo dnf install "$RPMDIR"/x86_64/firejail-*.rpm

That's it!

Automation

Create a shell script to automate the build process.

build-firejail-rpm.sh

#!/bin/bash

set -e

NAME=firejail
VERSION=$(grep "PACKAGE_VERSION=.*" configure | grep -oE "([[:digit:]]|\.)*")
COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)

installed_release=$(rpm -q --qf="%{RELEASE}" $NAME ||:)
if [ -z "$installed_release" ]; then
        RELEASE=1
else
        RELEASE=$(($(grep -oE "^[[:digit:]]+" <<<"$installed_release") + 1))
fi

TOPDIR=$(mktemp -dt $NAME-build.XXXXXX)
BUILDDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_builddir)
RPMDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_rpmdir)
SOURCEDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_sourcedir)
SPECDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_specdir)
SRPMDIR=$(rpm --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" --eval %_srcrpmdir)

mkdir -p "$BUILDDIR" "$RPMDIR" "$SOURCEDIR" "$SPECDIR" "$SRPMDIR"

cleanup() {
        rm -rf "$TOPDIR"
}
trap cleanup EXIT

cat <<EOF > "$SPECDIR/$NAME.spec"
Name:           $NAME
Version:        $VERSION
Release:        $RELEASE.git$COMMIT%{?dist}
Summary:        Linux namespaces sandbox program

License:        GPLv2+
URL:            https://github.com/netblue30/firejail
Source0:        %{name}.tar.gz

Recommends:     xdg-dbus-proxy
BuildRequires:  libselinux-devel

%description
Firejail is a SUID sandbox program that reduces the risk of security
breaches by restricting the running environment of untrusted applications
using Linux namespaces. It includes a sandbox profile for Mozilla Firefox.


%prep
%autosetup -c


%build
%configure --enable-selinux
%make_build


%install
make install-strip DESTDIR=%{buildroot}


%files
%config(noreplace) %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/firejail.config
%config(noreplace) %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/login.users
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.inc
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.net
%config %{_sysconfdir}/firejail/*.profile
%{_bindir}/firecfg
%{_bindir}/firejail
%{_bindir}/firemon
%{_libdir}/firejail
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firejail
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firecfg
%{_datadir}/bash-completion/completions/firemon
%{_docdir}/firejail/COPYING
%{_docdir}/firejail/README
%{_docdir}/firejail/RELNOTES
%{_docdir}/firejail/profile.template
%{_docdir}/firejail/redirect_alias-profile.template
%{_docdir}/firejail/syscalls.txt
%{_mandir}/man1/firecfg.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man1/firejail.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man1/firemon.1.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-login.5.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-profile.5.gz
%{_mandir}/man5/firejail-users.5.gz
%{_datadir}/vim/vimfiles/ftdetect/firejail.vim
%{_datadir}/vim/vimfiles/syntax/firejail.vim
%license COPYING
EOF

tar --exclude-vcs-ignore --exclude="./.git" --exclude="./test" --create --gzip --file "$SOURCEDIR/$NAME.tar.gz" .

rpmbuild --nodebuginfo --quiet --define "_topdir $TOPDIR" -bb "$SPECDIR"/$NAME.spec

RPM="$NAME-$VERSION-$RELEASE.git$COMMIT$(rpm -E %{?dist}).$(rpm -E %_arch).rpm"

mv "$RPMDIR/$(rpm -E %_arch)/$RPM" .

sudo dnf install "$RPM"

rm "$RPM"

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