James Coleman d11a525008 feat(release): publish an AppImage for each Linux architecture

- Releases now include Midi-Harbor-<version>-<x86_64|aarch64>.AppImage, built from the same binary as the packages and listed in checksums.txt, for distributions without a .deb or .rpm. Opened with no arguments it shows the window, and the daemon it registers runs under the systemd user unit like a package install.
- service install run from an AppImage registers the .AppImage file instead of the executable inside the runtime's temporary mount, which is gone once the process exits. The file is used only when the running executable is inside APPDIR, so a program started from another AppImage, whose APPIMAGE it inherits, still registers itself.
- The AppImage carries only the Avahi client libraries from the Debian 12 sysroot, with their LGPL-2.1 license, found through the binary's RUNPATH rather than LD_LIBRARY_PATH; glibc 2.35 or newer, ALSA, D-Bus and libxkbcommon come from the host, as for the packages.
- Its AppRun starts the binary as midi-harbor, so on X11 the window's class matches the desktop entry instead of the AppImage's file name.
- Building it needs the cross image's new patchelf, file, appimagetool 1.9.1 and type2 runtime 20251108, pinned by checksum, and a sysroot rebuilt to carry Avahi's license; the script stops and names make build-sysroot when that license is missing.

2026-09-29 14:35:51 -05:00

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midi-harbor

Midi Harbor manages MIDI connections on macOS, Linux and Windows: virtual ports other applications can use, attached MIDI hardware, RTP-MIDI network sessions to other computers, and Bluetooth LE MIDI devices. A daemon owns every connection and repairs it on its own. A network session that drops is reconnected, hardware that is unplugged and plugged back in picks up where it left off, and notes sounding when a link went away are released rather than left ringing.

The command line and the graphical interface are both clients of the daemon, so closing either changes nothing.

Install

Download a package or archive from the releases, or build this project. midi-harbor-headless leaves out the graphical interface, for machines without a display.

sudo apt install ./midi-harbor_<version>_<arch>.deb    # Debian and Ubuntu
sudo dnf install ./midi-harbor-<version>-1.<arch>.rpm    # Fedora and RHEL
chmod +x Midi-Harbor-<version>-x86_64.AppImage              # any other distribution

The release builds need glibc 2.35 or newer, so RHEL 9 and its rebuilds must build from source.

The Windows executable is not signed, so it warns the first time it runs; Installation says how to let it run.

On Windows, virtual ports need Windows MIDI Services. Windows 11 includes it from its late-2026 update; before that, install Microsoft's Windows MIDI Services SDK Runtime and Tools.

Building

Building needs Rust 1.96 or newer. On Linux it also needs the ALSA, D-Bus and Avahi development files and libclang, and for the graphical interface the xkbcommon and Wayland development files.

On Debian and Ubuntu:

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libasound2-dev libdbus-1-dev \
                 libavahi-client-dev libclang-dev
sudo apt install libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev    # for the graphical interface

On Fedora and RHEL (enable CodeReady Builder first on RHEL and its rebuilds):

sudo dnf install gcc pkgconf-pkg-config alsa-lib-devel dbus-devel avahi-devel clang-devel
sudo dnf install libxkbcommon-devel wayland-devel    # for the graphical interface

Then:

cargo build --release                        # with the graphical interface
cargo build --release --no-default-features  # without it

Windows builds are cross-compiled with mingw-w64:

rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

Release packages for every platform are built with GoReleaser in Docker, through make snapshot and make release.

Running as a service

The daemon registers itself with launchd, a systemd user unit, or Task Scheduler, and runs at every login:

midi-harbor service install --start
midi-harbor service status

Running from the command line

To try things out, or to see more of what the daemon is doing, run it in the foreground:

midi-harbor daemon -vv

Config

The setup lives in one YAML file per user, which the daemon writes as things change. midi-harbor config path prints where it is. It can be written by hand; only names and kinds are required:

endpoints:
  - name: Sequencer Bus
    kind: virtual_port
  - name: Studio
    kind: network_port
routes:
  - from: Sequencer Bus
    to: Studio

Run midi-harbor config reload after editing it while the daemon runs.

Usage

Every command has help:

midi-harbor --help

Run with no command, midi-harbor opens the graphical interface.

A basic setup that sends a local virtual port to another computer:

midi-harbor port create "Sequencer Bus"
midi-harbor network create "Studio"
midi-harbor network discover
midi-harbor network connect "Studio" "Stage Mac"
midi-harbor route create "Sequencer Bus" "Studio"

MIDI played into "Sequencer Bus" now reaches "Stage Mac", and keeps reaching it across sleep, network changes, and either machine restarting.

Testing

make test                # unit tests
make test-integration    # the daemon, CLI and protocols over real files and sockets
make test-live           # tests needing real MIDI, a Bluetooth radio or a session peer

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