Session requires a number of submodules to build, these can be retrieved by navigating to the project directory and running:
Open the `Session.xcodeproj` in Xcode.
```
git submodule update --init --recursive
open Session.xcodeproj
```
## 3. libSession build dependencies
In the TARGETS area of the General tab, change the Team dropdown to your own. You will need to do that for all the listed targets, e.g. `Session`, `SessionShareExtension`, and `SessionNotificationServiceExtension`. You will need an Apple Developer account for this.
On the Capabilities tab, turn off Push Notifications and Data Protection, while keeping Background Modes on. The App Groups capability will need to remain on in order to access the shared data storage.
Build and Run and you are ready to go!
The iOS project has a share C++ library called `libSession` which is built as one of the project dependencies, in order for this to compile the following dependencies need to be installed:
## Other
### Building libSession from source
The iOS project has a shared C++ library called `libSession` which is included via Swift Package Manager, it also supports building `libSession` from source (which can be cloned from https://github.com/session-foundation/libsession-util) by using the `Session_CompileLibSession` scheme and updating the `LIB_SESSION_SOURCE_DIR` build setting to point at the `libSession` source directory (currently it's set to `${SOURCE_DIR}/../LibSession-Util`)
In order for this to compile the following dependencies need to be installed:
- cmake
- m4
- pkg-config
@ -51,41 +57,10 @@ Additionally `xcode-select` needs to be setup correctly (depending on the order
It seems that there is an open issue with Swift Package Manager (https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-package-manager/issues/4407) where some packages (in our case `libwebp`) run into issues when the Address Sanitizer or Undefined Behaviour Sanitizer are enabled within the scheme, if you see linker errors like the below when building this is likely the issue and can be resolved by disabling these sanitisers.
In order to still benefit from these settings they are explicitly set as `Other C Flags` for the `SessionUtil` target when building in debug mode to enable better debugging of `libSession`.
```
Undefined symbol: ___asan_init
Undefined symbol: ___ubsan_handle_add_overflow
```
### Third-party Installation
The database for the app is stored within an `App Group` directory which is based on the app identifier, unfortunately the identifier cannot be retrieved at runtime so it's currently hard-coded in the code. In order to be able to run session on a device you will need to update the `UserDefaults.applicationGroup` variable in `SessionUtilitiesKit/General/SNUserDefaults` to match the value provided (You may also need to create the `App Group` on your Apple Developer account).
The database for the app is stored within an `App Group` directory which is based on the app identifier, we have a script Build Phase which attempts to extract this and include it in the `Info.plist` for the project so we can access it at runtime (to reduce the manual handling other devs need to do) but if for some reason it's not working the fallback value can be updated within the `UserDefaults.applicationGroup` variable in `SessionUtilitiesKit/Types/UserDefaultsType` to match the value set for your project (You may also need to create the `App Group` on your Apple Developer account).
### Push Notifications
Features related to push notifications are known to be not working for
third-party contributors since Apple's Push Notification service pushes
will only work with the Session production code signing
certificate.
Features related to push notifications are known to be not working for third-party contributors since Apple's Push Notification service pushes will only work with the Session production code signing certificate.
Morgan Pretty
1 week ago