MullvadVPN (Flatpak)

Unofficial Flatpak for the Mullvad VPN desktop client on Linux.

STATUS: ❌ - The Flatpak version of Mullvad VPN doesn’t work because the Mullvad system daemon performs strict ownership and permission checks that require direct access to the host system. Flatpak’s sandboxing model blocks the app from interacting with the system-level components the daemon expects, so the client cannot work properly.

This package provides the official Mullvad VPN desktop application (GUI + CLI) running inside a Flatpak sandbox. To establish a VPN tunnel it requires a Mullvad VPN daemon running on the host system (outside Flatpak).

Important: This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mullvad. It only repackages the official Mullvad binaries into a Flatpak manifest. Please do not report Flatpak-specific issues to Mullvad; use this repository’s issue tracker instead.

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Features

• Runs the official Mullvad VPN desktop GUI (Electron) in a Flatpak sandbox.
• Includes the mullvad CLI inside the sandbox.
• Integrates with:
  • Wayland/X11
  • System tray (org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher)
  • org.freedesktop.NetworkManager and org.freedesktop.secrets over the system D-Bus
• Relies on Flatpak’s sandbox; the Chromium SUID helper (chrome-sandbox) is removed.

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Requirements

• Flatpak installed and configured with Flathub.
• Runtimes:
  • org.freedesktop.Platform//25.08
  • org.freedesktop.Sdk//25.08 (for building)
• Mullvad VPN daemon running on the host and exposing its RPC socket under /run/mullvad-vpn.

Without the daemon, the Flatpak will start, but it will not be able to establish a VPN tunnel and will show errors such as:

• “No connection established to daemon”
• “Failed to connect to daemon before the deadline”

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Build and install locally

First install flatpak-builder with your package manager.

Then build and install for your user:

flatpak-builder --force-clean --user --install-deps-from=flathub \
  --repo=repo --install builddir net.mullvad.mullvadvpn.yaml

After installation, run the app with:

flatpak run net.mullvad.mullvadvpn

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Running the Mullvad daemon (example: Arch Linux)

On Arch Linux, you can install Mullvad VPN (daemon + native GUI) from AUR:

yay -S mullvad-vpn

Enable and start the daemon:

sudo systemctl enable --now mullvad-daemon.service
systemctl status mullvad-daemon.service

Ensure the RPC socket directory exists:

ls -l /run/mullvad-vpn /var/run/mullvad-vpn 2>/dev/null

If you need to force the socket path to /run/mullvad-vpn, create a systemd override:

sudo systemctl edit mullvad-daemon.service

Add:

[Service]
Environment=MULLVAD_RPC_SOCKET_PATH=/run/mullvad-vpn

Then reload and restart:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart mullvad-daemon.service
ls -l /run/mullvad-vpn

Once the daemon and socket are available, start the Flatpak:

flatpak run net.mullvad.mullvadvpn

The GUI should now be able to connect to the daemon and control the VPN tunnel.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues and pull requests for:

• Manifest improvements
• Runtime/runtime-version updates
• Packaging fixes for new Mullvad releases