Background

Repology currently lists rustnet on (as of issue creation):

• Arch family: arch/extra, aur (rustnet-git), manjaro_* (stable, testing, unstable), parabola
• NixOS: nix_unstable (NixOS/nixpkgs#445289)
• Fedora-derived: terra_rawhide
• Void Linux: void_x86_64
• Russian distros: altsisyphus, rosa_13
• Windows: chocolatey

Plus, not tracked by repology but live in INSTALL.md: Ubuntu PPA (25.10 / 26.04), Fedora COPR (42+), .deb / .rpm tarballs from releases, Homebrew, FreeBSD (separate repo), Android (Termux).

There are still notable gaps we'd like community help with:

• openSUSE (Tumbleweed / Leap — likely via OBS)
• Alpine Linux (aports, musl-static build already exists)
• Gentoo (ebuild — app-network/rustnet or similar)
• Slackware (SlackBuilds.org)
• Pop!_OS — Ubuntu-derived. The Ubuntu PPA might work as-is for Pop! users; if so, INSTALL.md just needs to say so. If not, document the workaround
• Linux Mint — same situation as Pop!_OS; verify whether the Ubuntu PPA covers it and document either way
• Other distros you know well — if you maintain or follow a distro that isn't on this list and rustnet would be useful there, propose it in a comment first so we can scope it

Known-broken: Snap and Flatpak

We don't want PRs for Snap or Flatpak. Both isolate packages in sandboxes that prevent the kernel-level packet capture and eBPF features rustnet needs (raw sockets, CAP_NET_RAW, CAP_BPF, CAP_PERFMON). Until the Snap/Flatpak interfaces grow real support for these capabilities, packaging there would ship a broken experience. If you have a workaround or new interface to propose, comment first — don't open a PR.

Scope (per sub-task)

Each distro is one separate PR. The contributor:

1. Writes the package definition in the upstream distro's repo (OBS for openSUSE, aports for Alpine, ::gentoo for Gentoo, SlackBuilds for Slackware) — not in rustnet itself
2. Opens a PR against rustnet that:
   • Adds an install section to INSTALL.md (and INSTALL.zh-CN.md if it exists by then — see docs(i18n): translate the rest of the doc set to Simplified Chinese #275)
   • Updates the README.md install table if appropriate
   • Notes any patches they had to carry so we can upstream them

Capability setup (setcap cap_net_raw,cap_bpf,cap_perfmon+eip /usr/bin/rustnet, with a cap_sys_admin fallback for older kernels) must be in the package post-install, matching the pattern in debian/postinst and rpm/rustnet.spec (lines 60-70).

For the Ubuntu-derivative entries (Pop!_OS, Linux Mint), the PR is documentation-only: verify the PPA works on a fresh install and add the section to INSTALL.md.

Acceptance criteria (per PR)

The PR must include evidence of real-world end-to-end testing — install the new package on a clean target-distro VM/container, run rustnet, and demonstrate it captures traffic. Synthetic builds in CI alone are not sufficient.

• Package builds and installs cleanly on the target distro's current stable release — paste the install command output in the PR
• After install, getcap /usr/bin/rustnet shows the expected capabilities applied via post-install
• rustnet --version runs without sudo
• A 30-second capture session works on the test system — include a screenshot of the UI with real connections
• INSTALL.md updated with copy-paste install commands
• For packaged distros: Repology picks up the new package within ~1 week of merge — link the repology entry in a follow-up comment

References

• Current package matrix: INSTALL.md
• Repology tracker: https://repology.org/project/rustnet/versions
• Capability post-install pattern: debian/postinst (lines 14-16), rpm/rustnet.spec (lines 60-70)
• Related: packaging(fedora): ship an SELinux policy that confines rustnet #271 (Fedora SELinux), packaging(deb): ship an AppArmor profile that confines rustnet #272 (Ubuntu AppArmor) — distros that already ship MAC frameworks should consider including a profile too