Mocco

Publish a Tauri app for Linux

This guide adds Linux (linux-x86_64) to a Tauri 2 app that publishes to Mocco. Set up the app, the updater key, tauri.conf.json and the CI key first, as in Publish a Tauri app; everything there applies to Linux too.

Pick a bundle

Use AppImage. It runs on most distributions, and the updater replaces it in place without an administrator:

Bundletauri build --bundlesFiles in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/
AppImageappimageappimage/App_0.2.0_amd64.AppImage and appimage/App_0.2.0_amd64.AppImage.sig
debdebdeb/App_0.2.0_amd64.deb and, with an updater plugin that installs packages, deb/App_0.2.0_amd64.deb.sig
rpmrpmrpm/App-0.2.0-1.x86_64.rpm and, likewise, rpm/App-0.2.0-1.x86_64.rpm.sig

With createUpdaterArtifacts: true, Tauri signs the AppImage itself for the updater, so the same file is both what people download and what the app installs. (With "v1Compatible", the update bundle is a separate .AppImage.tar.gz with its own .sig; upload that as the update bundle instead.) Updating a .deb or .rpm install needs an updater plugin version that supports it, and asks for an administrator's password; check your plugin's release notes before you ship one.

A release has one installer and one update bundle per platform, so pick one bundle for linux-x86_64. Build on the oldest distribution you support (ubuntu-22.04, for example): an AppImage built on a newer one may not start on older systems.

Linux has no counterpart of Authenticode or notarization that Mocco checks. The updater signature is what protects installed apps: they verify every update against the public key compiled into them.

The release step

On a Linux runner, after the build:

- name: Publish to Mocco
  uses: fi-workers/mocco/actions/desktop-publish@<commit sha>
  with:
    app-id: <app id>
    version: ${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}
    notes-file: RELEASE_NOTES.md
    artifacts: |
      linux-x86_64 installer src-tauri/target/release/bundle/appimage/App_${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}_amd64.AppImage
      linux-x86_64 updater   src-tauri/target/release/bundle/appimage/App_${{ steps.version.outputs.version }}_amd64.AppImage
    channel: stable
  env:
    MOCCO_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.MOCCO_API_KEY }}

The same file is listed twice, once per kind; the .sig next to it is read for the updater line. For deb, use the two deb/…_amd64.deb lines instead (and rpm/… for rpm).

Mocco serves the update under linux-x86_64 and under the key newer updater plugins look up first: linux-x86_64-appimage, or linux-x86_64-deb / linux-x86_64-rpm when the update bundle's name ends in .deb / .rpm. Nothing changes in tauri.conf.json: the endpoint's {{target}}/{{arch}} is already linux/x86_64.

Publish with the other platforms

To ship macOS, Windows and Linux as one release, build each on its own runner and publish every file from one job: see Build every platform, publish one release.

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