Talk:Mullvad VPN

Confusing section about services.mullvad-vpn.package = pkgs.mullvad-vpn;

Hi there,

while trying to get MullvadVPN to work (still does not), I stumbled upon the wiki page and the related forum post.

What my only question / cause for confusion is:

```

If you want to use the GUI application:

❄︎ configuration.nix

{ pkgs, ... }:

{

  services.mullvad-vpn.package = pkgs.mullvad-vpn;

}

```

I am still a nix/OS novice by any account, but from my understanding this does not make any sense, because this is for overwriting the gui package and not for “enabling” it as the text suggests or am I missunderstanding something? I wanted to double check before editing the relevant page. Daemonfire (talk) 08:13, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I understand the confusion. That's a packaging quirk with how we implement Mullvad in NixOS.

The default value for that option is pkgs.mullvad, which is just the CLI tools. pkgs.mullvad-vpn, on the other hand, includes both the GUI and the CLI tools. By changing the value of the package option, you can choose to install the GUI or just the CLI tools.

So, if this is a non-graphical system, such as a server, use pkgs.mullvad. If this is a graphical machine, use pkgs.mullvad-vpn.

Hope this helps! Fernando Rodrigues (talk) 08:36, 10 February 2026 (UTC)