Polaris

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A fast, friendly WinUI 3 desktop client for the EasyTier mesh VPN — with the EasyTier core embedded directly in the app, so there is no separate easytier-core.exe daemon to install or manage.

Polaris is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v3.0.

Features

• Embedded EasyTier core — the mesh-VPN engine runs in-process as a Rust library; no external daemon or CLI.
• Multiple networks at once — connect to several EasyTier networks simultaneously, each with its own profile.
• VPN or proxy — full VPN via a TUN adapter when running as administrator; otherwise SOCKS5 and port-forward proxies still work, no admin required.
• P2P mesh — TCP / UDP / WebSocket transports, WireGuard crypto, subnet proxy, a SOCKS5 portal, and magic DNS.
• Native Windows UX — system-tray icon, single-instance handling, config import/export, light/dark themes and Mica/Acrylic materials.
• Bundled Wintun driver — ships the WireGuard-signed wintun.dll so the TUN adapter loads deterministically instead of a foreign copy found on PATH.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or later. Windows 11 is required for the elevated (VPN-capable) MSIX build.
• The Windows App SDK runtime (WinUI 3) — install the runtime, or place the WinAppSDK DLLs next to the executable.

Building

Polaris builds with Cargo and a recent Rust toolchain (edition 2024, Rust 1.85+):

cargo build --release --bin polaris_et
cargo run --release

The build pulls windows-reactor and easytier from Git (see Cargo.toml) and, via build.rs, embeds the app icon and drops the bundled wintun.dll next to the produced executable.

Administrator / VPN

Creating the TUN adapter needs administrator rights. Polaris never forces elevation:

• Without admin it runs proxy-only (SOCKS5 / port-forward) and won't error when connecting.
• Enable Settings → Always launch as administrator, or click Restart as administrator now, to bring up full VPN mode.

Packaging (MSIX)

Polaris can ship as an MSIX for the Microsoft Store or sideloading, in two shapes:

Build	TUN VPN	Proxy
cargo build --release (proxy-only)	No	Yes
cargo build --release --features msix (VPN-capable, Win 11+)	Yes	Yes

The VPN-capable build embeds a highestAvailable UAC manifest and pairs with the allowElevation capability so the packaged app can elevate. See packaging/PACKAGING.md for the full layout / pack / sign steps and the Windows 11 and Store-certification caveats.

Project layout

Path	What
src/main.rs	App shell, root state, render loop, startup & elevation
src/ui.rs	WinUI pages (Networks, Settings, About)
src/engine.rs	EasyTier instance lifecycle
src/config.rs	Network profiles & persisted settings
src/elevate.rs	Privilege & MSIX-packaging detection
src/instance.rs	Single-instance coordination
src/tray.rs / src/dialog.rs	Tray icon, native file dialogs
build.rs	Icon embed, bundled wintun.dll, MSIX UAC manifest

License

Polaris is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 — see LICENSE. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.

Third-party components and their licenses (EasyTier, windows-reactor, the Wintun driver, and the Fluent UI icon) are listed in CREDITS.md.