Install on Android

Nardeboon for Android is one app, for phones and tablets with Android 7.0 or later, that puts the device on your network as a VPN. It's downloaded from nardeboon.io for now; Google Play comes later.

Install

On the phone, open the download page and choose Download for Android. On a computer, the page's QR code opens it on the phone. Then open the download: Android asks once whether your browser may install apps. Allow it, go back, and choose Install.

Android may say the app doesn't come from Google Play. Nardeboon is signed with a key of its own, and Android installs an update of it only if the update is signed with the same key. To check an APK yourself, with the Android SDK's apksigner:

apksigner verify --print-certs nardeboon_<version>_android.apk

Its signer's certificate SHA-256 digest is 3d6e3ff31f6148e7e0965643b51cde10ed318650bc2052071696593f6fec25cd.

Join your network

Open Nardeboon and choose Sign in: a browser tab opens over the app, you sign in with your account, and the phone joins your network. To join with an auth key from the dashboard, choose Use an auth key instead.

Then tap Connect. Android asks once whether Nardeboon may be a VPN, and on Android 13 and later whether it may show notifications: its notification says what it's connected to, with Disconnect. Quick Settings can connect and disconnect it too: edit the tiles and add Nardeboon's.

What it does

• A VPN. Your network's devices are reachable from the phone by address, and by name, and only their traffic goes through Nardeboon unless you choose an exit node. Android runs one VPN at a time, so connecting Nardeboon disconnects another.
• An exit node, when you choose one. Exit node, on the home screen, sends the phone's internet through one of your network's exit nodes. With the kill switch on, nothing reaches the internet while the exit node can't be reached; Local network keeps the networks the phone is on reachable directly. See Exit nodes.
• Connected as you left it. If it was connected when the phone shut down, it connects again when the phone starts, and again if Android stopped it. Android's Settings → Network & internet → VPN → Nardeboon also offers Always-on VPN and Block connections without VPN, Android's own kill switch.
• Names. With Use the network's DNS on in its settings, the phone finds your network's devices by name. See DNS and device names.
• In the background. Some phones' makers stop apps in the background to save battery. If yours stops Nardeboon, let it run without restrictions in the phone's battery settings.

Updates

Nardeboon updates itself, installing only a release that Nardeboon signed: the app checks each download against Nardeboon's signature, and Android checks that it's signed with the app's own key. When a new version is out, the home screen and Settings → Updates say so; choose Update. The first time, Android asks whether Nardeboon may install apps, and asks you to confirm the update. The app closes for its new version, which connects again as it was, and a notification says when it's in.

Settings → Updates also chooses the channel: Stable, or Beta, which gets new releases sooner and takes Stable's too, whichever is newer.

Remove

Touch and hold Nardeboon's icon and choose Uninstall, or uninstall it in Android's settings. Remove the device in the dashboard too: a phone that installs Nardeboon again joins as a new device.