Supported Systems

We provide packages for Nix, Arch Linux, and Alpine Linux.

Since Rosenpass was released not too long ago, packaging is an ongoing process. You can find the latest information about all the Linux distributions we support on Repology.

Even if your distribution is not listed here, you can always compile Rosenpass yourself or download a pre-built, statically linked binary from our GitHub release page. You can also find OCI container images (Docker, Podman, etc.) there. While we only offer x86_64 builds, there's no principle reason limiting Rosenpass to x86_64, and you can compile it for any architecture in Linux, or MacOS, that is supported by liboqs.

How to install Rosenpass on your Linux distribution

(arch AUR)		$ aura -A rosenpass-git
(arch pacman)	$ pacman -S rosenpass
(NixOS)			$ nix-env -iA nixos.rosenpass nixos.rosenpass-tools
(nix-flake)		$ nix profile install github:rosenpass/rosenpass#rosenpass
(cargo)			$ cargo install rosenpass
(alpine)		$ apk add rosenpass

To find more information on the available command line parameters, you can use these tools:

rp help
rosenpass help

How to set up your Rosenpass enhanced WireGuard VPN

Note: Technically, there's no difference between both hosts, but we named them server (pink) and client (orange) in this example to make it easier to comprehend.

1. Start by generating secret keys on both hosts

user@server:~$ rp genkey server.rosenpass-secret

user@client:~$ rp genkey client.rosenpass-secret

2. Extract the public keys

user@server:~$ rp pubkey server.rosenpass-secret server.rosenpass-public

user@client:~$ rp pubkey client.rosenpass-secret client.rosenpass-public

3. Copy each -public directory to the other peer
Congrats! Your basic setup is complete!

How to launch your Rosenpass-enhanced WireGuard VPN

4. Start the VPN

user@server:~$ sudo rp exchange server.rosenpass-secret dev rosenpass0 listen 192.168.0.1:9999 \
peer client.rosenpass-public allowed-ips fe80::/64

user@client:~$ sudo rp exchange client.rosenpass-secret dev rosenpass0 \
peer server.rosenpass-public endpoint 192.168.0.1:9999 allowed-ips fe80::/64

5. Assign IP addresses

user@server:~$ sudo ip a add fe80::1/64 dev rosenpass0

user@client:~$ sudo ip a add fe80::2/64 dev rosenpass0

Just to be sure: Verify the magic!

6. Test the connection by pinging the server on the client machine

user@client:~$ ping fe80::1%rosenpass0

7. You can watch how Rosenpass replaces the WireGuard PSK with the following command

watch -n 0.2 'wg show all; wg show all preshared-keys'

All done!

Rosenpass will now generate a new PSK key for WireGuard about every two minutes and keep your VPN connection secure against post-quantum computer attacks.

For the curious

rp is a convienience wrapper for the actual rosenpass programme (which handles the post-quantum secure key exchange). rp can set up both WireGuard and Rosenpass for you by:

• generating WireGuard and Rosenpass public and secret keys
• setting up the WireGuard interface
• launching a Rosenpass process

If you're interested in learning more about how rosenpass works, you can try setting everything up yourself manually. Use the explain verb to show you how to integrate Rosenpass with WireGuard:

$ rp explain genkey mykey
#! /bin/bash
set -e
umask 077
mkdir -p mykey
wg genkey > mykey/wgsk
rosenpass keygen \
  private-key mykey/pqsk \
  public-key mykey/pqpk

We provide more in-depth ressources in our Documentation section.

Go to Documentation