[Feature Request] Update notification.

[pkw365]

1 - Notify user when new version is avavilable.
And if it's easy to implement :
2 - Ask user to update auto or manually.

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

hey @pkw365 , thanks for this suggestion.

I think it's better for the system take care of this.

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

I was thinking that this feature could be added as plugin, like what we have for virustotal. Disabled by default.
Users could enable it on demand, and distros could not include it in their packages if they worry about telemetry.

[pkw365]

Sounds like a good idea.
Not many distros have opensnitch in their repros and in "stable " releases it's outdated.

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

added a basic plugin to check the version at regular interval times.

GUI plugins cannot be configured from the GUI yet, so in order to activate it you'll have to follow the commit information. Basically copy the configuration file to $HOME/.config/opensnitch/actions (you'll have to create this directory)

[pkw365]

I have installed the plugin.
How can I see that it's working ?
Log file shows no info, but I do get strange characters :

�[2m[2025-11-27 17:53:53]�[0m �[97m�[104m IMP �[0m Got signal: terminated
�[2m[2025-11-27 17:53:54]�[0m �[97m�[41m ERR �[0m Connection to the UI service lost.
�[2m[2025-11-27 17:54:16]�[0m �[97m�[104m IMP �[0m Start writing logs to /var/log/opensnitchd.log
�[2m[2025-11-27 17:54:28]�[0m �[97m�[104m IMP �[0m UI connected, dispathing queued alerts: 0
�[2m[2025-11-28 04:38:57]�[0m �[97m�[43m WAR �[0m notification channel closed by the server
�[2m[2025-11-28 04:38:58]�[0m �[97m�[41m ERR �[0m Connection to the UI service lost.

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

change the configuration, to check for new versions every 10 seconds for example:

      "versionchecker": {
          "enabled": true,
          "config": {
              "check_on_start": false,
              "name": "check-latest-release",
              "interval": "12",
              "units": "seconds",
              "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/evilsocket/opensnitch/releases"
          }
      }

you'll be prompted to allow a connection from the GUI to the api.github.com domain.

[pkw365]

Nothing happens.
Maybe user error ?
This is what I did :
Create
/home/max/.config/opensnitch/actions/versionchecker.json.
With following code :

{
  "name": "versionchecker",
  "created": "",
  "updated": "",
  "description": "",
  "type": ["global"],
  "actions": {
      "versionchecker": {
          "enabled": true,
          "config": {
              "check_on_start": false,
              "name": "check-latest-release",
              "interval": "12",
              "units": "seconds",
              "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/evilsocket/opensnitch/releases"
          }
      }
  }
}

This is on Ubuntu 24 + xfce.

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

mmmh, check if you have the package python3-requests installed @pkw365 .

If you launch the GUI from a terminal and there's any errors, it should be printed to stdout.

[pkw365]

Python3-requests is installed.
Terminal gives following errors :

actions.__init__ exception: [Errno 17] File exists: '/home/john/.config//opensnitch/actions/'
actions.__init__ exception: [Errno 17] File exists: '/home/john/.config//opensnitch/actions/'
actions.compile() unable to load plugin name 'versionchecker'
Loading translations: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/opensnitch/utils/../i18n locale: en_US
using IPASN DB: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/data/ipasn_20140513_v12.dat.gz
actions.__init__ exception: [Errno 17] File exists: '/home/john/.config//opensnitch/actions/

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

damn, no idea then. I've tested it on Ubuntu with 1.7.2 (after installing pyqt6), Mint 22.1 and Arch, and works fine.

If you copied the plugin https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/tree/58c379424d65f602d6dbbbd6167ca12303fe5c45/ui/opensnitch/plugins/versionchecker to /usr/share/python3/dist-packages/plugins/versionchecker/ , then wait until the next release, and we'll see if it works.

[pkw365]

Directory "/usr/share/python3/dist-packages/plugins/versionchecker/" does not excist.
But "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/opensnitch/plugins" does.
I copied files from your link to "/usr/share/python3/dist-packages/plugins/versionchecker/".
But no luck.

Created Directory "/usr/share/python3/dist-packages/plugins/versionchecker/" and copied files, again no luck.

I tested on Debian 13 but it also fails.
Anything else I could try ?

Edit :
Forgot to add, debiab 13 + xfce and Ubuntu 24 + kde.
(kde alo failed).

[gustavo-iniguez-goya]

I've just tested it on a fresh installation with latest v1.8.0:

Copy the .json config example to .config/opensnitch/actions/:
~ $ cp /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/opensnitch/plugins/versionchecker/versionchecker.json .config/opensnitch/actions/

Change the item: "enabled": false to true.
Change the item "units": "hours" to seconds, in order to test it every 12 seconds.

Close the GUI, launch it again and it should try to check the version.

If it doesn't work I'll have to add more debugging messages to know why it's not working.