NoctaProton VPN

A sleek, native Noctalia shell plugin to control Proton VPN without needing the official GUI. Seamlessly manage your Kill Switch, NetShield ad/tracker blocker, Port Forwarding, and Split Tunneling, or hop countries and servers on the fly with live throughput graphs and dynamic theme coloring.

Built for Noctalia Shell, extensively tested on MangoWM on Arch Linux (CachyOS).

---

[!NOTE] AI Development Disclaimer: This plugin was engineered, written, and verified with the assistance of artificial intelligence (Google Antigravity / Gemini), paired with thorough hands-on testing on a live Wayland desktop environment (Noctalia on MangoWM, Arch Linux).

---

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	riversyx/noctaproton-vpn
Entries	Bar widget: bar; panel: panel; service: service; shortcut: toggle

Requirements

• proton-vpn-cli: Official Proton VPN Linux CLI (v1.0.3+). Install via your package manager:

  sudo pacman -S proton-vpn-cli
  

• nmcli: NetworkManager command-line client for high-performance zero-latency link status tracking.
• python: Python 3.10+ runtime (for NAT-PMP port keepalive, server caching, and split-tunneling desktop scanner).
• An active Proton account (Free or Plus/Unlimited).

Features

• 🎨 Dynamic Theme Coloring: Automatically synchronizes with your active Noctalia color palette and wallpaper tones (using semantic primary, on_surface, and surface_variant tokens).
• 🛡️ Kill Switch: Instant standard Kill Switch toggle to prevent accidental IP leaks.
• 🛡️ NetShield Ad & Malware Blocker: 3-level DNS filtering (Off, Malware only, Malware, Ads & Trackers).
• ⚡ Port Forwarding: Automatic continuous NAT-PMP port mapping renewal every 45s with one-click port copying to clipboard for torrent clients and P2P software.
• 🔀 Split Tunneling: Seamless application picker scanning installed .desktop applications to route specific apps outside the VPN tunnel.
• 🌍 Country & Server Hopping: Quick connect to Fastest, Random, P2P, Tor, or Secure Core, with a full searchable country and server list.
• 📈 Real-Time Bandwidth Meter: Live download & upload speed counters (KB/s, MB/s) and session transfer totals.
• 🔐 Secure Interactive Authentication: Launches an interactive terminal prompt for username, password, and 2FA authentication, keeping credentials completely isolated from scripts.
• 🚀 Desktop Bar & Quick Toggle: Left-click the bar shield to open the panel, or right-click anytime to quick-connect / disconnect.

Installation

Method 1: Using Noctalia Plugin Sources (Local / Dev)

1. Clone this repository into your local Noctalia plugins directory:

   git clone https://github.com/RiverSyx/noctaproton-vpn.git ~/.config/noctalia/plugins/noctaproton-vpn
   

2. Register the local plugin source (if you haven't already):

   noctalia msg plugins source add local path ~/.config/noctalia/plugins
   

3. Enable the plugin:

   noctalia msg plugins enable riversyx/noctaproton-vpn
   

4. Add the widget to your Noctalia configuration (~/.config/noctalia/config.toml):

   [widget.protonvpn]
   type = "riversyx/noctaproton-vpn:bar"
   

   And add "protonvpn" to your [bar.default].end or [bar.default].start array.

Method 2: From the Noctalia Community Plugin Store

Once merged into the community catalog:

noctalia msg plugins enable riversyx/noctaproton-vpn

Usage

• Toggle Panel via CLI / Keybind:

  noctalia msg panel-toggle riversyx/noctaproton-vpn:panel
  

• Control Center Shortcut: Add the toggle shortcut in Noctalia Settings → Control Center to toggle your connection with a single click.
• Bar Widget:
  • Left Click: Open or dismiss the control panel.
  • Right Click: Quick toggle (connects to fastest server or disconnects).

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
refresh_interval	int	5	How often (in seconds) to poll the Proton VPN CLI and NetworkManager for status.
traffic_monitoring	bool	true	Enables continuous sampling of interface throughput from /sys/class/net/proton0/statistics/.
notify_on_connect	bool	true	Show desktop notifications when the VPN tunnel connects or disconnects.

Notes

• Network Access: The plugin itself makes no direct external web calls; all VPN connectivity is managed via the official protonvpn CLI. When Port Forwarding is enabled, port.py sends local NAT-PMP renewals exclusively to the internal tunnel gateway (10.2.0.1:5351).
• Files Written:
  • Split tunneling settings are written directly to Proton's native configuration file at ~/.config/Proton/VPN/settings.json.
• System Requirements: Requires proton.VPN.service systemd service running (systemctl status proton.VPN.service).

License

GPL-3.0-only