(MacOS) - Unable to execute kubectl commands inside wails app

[abhijith-darshan]

Description

In my application I am trying to use kubernetes client-go, which works in dev mode when the kubeconfig has oidc enabled. But when packaged the application doesn't seem to have access to kubectl binary.

However when i run the app using sudo open /path/to/app on the terminal, it seems to have access to kubectl binary and client-go successfully initiates the oidc flow.

To Reproduce

...

Expected behaviour

Packaged App should behave exactly like in dev mode

Screenshots

No response

Attempted Fixes

sudo open /path/to/app

System Details

Wails Doctor          
                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                           
# Wails
Version | v2.9.2

# System
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
| OS           | MacOS                                                                                                                       |
| Version      | 15.1.1                                                                                                                      |
| ID           | 24B91                                                                                                                       |
| Go Version   | go1.23.1                                                                                                                    |
| Platform     | darwin                                                                                                                      |
| Architecture | arm64                                                                                                                       |
| CPU          | Apple M3 Pro                                                                                                                |
| GPU          | Chipset Model: Apple M3 Pro Type: GPU Bus: Built-In Total Number of Cores: 18 Vendor: Apple (0x106b) Metal Support: Metal 3 |
| Memory       | 36GB                                                                                                                        |
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

# Dependencies
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
| Dependency                | Package Name | Status    | Version |
| Xcode command line tools  | N/A          | Installed | 2409    |
| Nodejs                    | N/A          | Installed | 22.12.0 |
| npm                       | N/A          | Installed | 10.9.0  |
| *Xcode                    | N/A          | Available |         |
| *upx                      | N/A          | Available |         |
| *nsis                     | N/A          | Available |         |
└─────────────────── * - Optional Dependency ────────────────────┘

# Diagnosis
Optional package(s) installation details: 
  - Xcode: Available at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835
  - upx : Available at https://upx.github.io/
  - nsis : More info at https://wails.io/docs/guides/windows-installer/

 SUCCESS  Your system is ready for Wails development!

Additional context

No response

[leaanthony]

I'm not sure what this could be, but it's not a Wails bug. Moving to Q & A.

[abhijith-darshan]

It is very similar to this issue - #3103

the only difference is https://github.com/kubernetes/client-go will invoke the kubectl oidc-login command that is specified in the kubeconfig.

another thing I noticed was os.Environ() returned an empty slice of env variables.

This basically tells me that the packaged app was unable to read $PATH environment variables.

[chelizichen]

I meet the same problem

it worked on dev stage

on production , the applicaiton seems like can not get the os.Env

func (a *App)OpenProject(filePath string){
	cwd := filepath.Dir(filePath)
	var cmd *exec.Cmd   = exec.Command("marscode", "./")
	cmd.Dir = cwd
	cmd.Env = append(cmd.Env, os.Environ()...)
	cmd.Run()
}

[abhijith-darshan]

@leaanthony - it has been a while do you have any recommendations here??

[leaanthony]

None. I don't know why os.Env would return nothing. Have you tried creating a basic Go application to print out the os.Env, compile with the same flags as Wails does and see if it prints anything out? https://wails.io/docs/guides/manual-builds#compile-application

[abhijith-darshan]

I found out a couple of things:

Regarding shell env in GUI apps

• By default macOS GUI apps (like .app bundles) don’t inherit shell environment variables when launched from finder or applications.
• If in your wails apps you are invoking installed binaries on user's systems that should be available in $PATH then you would face errors

Opening the compiled binary from terminal

• When opened from terminal the shell env is available and everything should work

open /path/to/your-app.app/Contents/MacOS/your-app

• Sometimes this may still not work so you could resort to sudo open but alternatively you could also do chmod +x binary and then open /path/to/your-app.app/Contents/MacOS/your-app will work

Setting well known PATH as env on app start

• You could also programmatically do os.SetEnv on app start and then everything should work

Example on mac -

//go:embed all:dashboards/dist
var assets embed.FS

var IsPackaged = "false"

func main() {
	// Create an instance of the app structure
	app := pkg.NewApp()

	packaged, err := strconv.ParseBool(IsPackaged)
	if err == nil {
		if packaged {
			_ = os.Setenv("PATH", "/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin")
		} else {
			fmt.Println("✅ Running in development mode: PATH remains unchanged")
		}
	}
....
}

Then build your wails app with -ldflags

$> wails build -clean -ldflags "-X 'main.IsPackaged=true'"

Note

Of course based on ARCH and OS, relevant paths need to be handled accordingly and it might be tedious or error prone, so effective error handling and reporting these errors to frontend should do the trick. Many apps also add relevant binaries like kubectl, helm etc in their app's resources to use inside the app and not rely on user system paths
#2507 #3103 all indicate the same issue

I am not sure what is the best approach here but I am thinking in dev phase to test the packaged App I will go with setting the env programmatically (as it is just in my system) and once the App is developed I would just bundle the dependencies I need.