Slashdot Mirror
Fake Your Own .Mac Server
c13v3rm0nk3y writes "A clever fellow named Otto Moerbeek has publish a short article on getting an OpenBSD box to emulate a .Mac server. Using Apache/DAV/SSL and a roll a duct-tape, he describes how you can get most .Mac functionality without paying Apple for it."
This is useful because then you can use apple's backup tools to backup to a local server, and not have to backup over your piddly internet connection.
Nice name for a geek.
I wonder how many comments will get posted here before Apple cease and desists them.
Am I the only one who thinks that it is just a little bit irresponsible to publish an article that condones the use software without paying for it? Granted this is a sort of grey area since some people would argue that you're paying for .Mac instead of for the backup software itself but the backup software is designed to be used with the .Mac service so using it without paying Apple is akin to piracy.
The Slashdot community normally champions the cause of Free Software but ordinarily they limit themselves to legitimate Free Software a la Open Source. I think it is shameful to openly encourage software piracy like this.
This kind ofstuff is great. Appletakes advantage of open protocols like webDAV to implement their services, and they'll still make lots of money off of .Mac. But for those who want to put in the time and have a spare machine lying around they can now get a lot of the advantages of .Mac, which might entice them to buy a new mac where they wouldn't have if it meant forking over for .Mac.
I'm sur eApple saw this coming, and if they really wanted to prevent it they would have just added an authentication mechanism or something to block unauthorized servers.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
I agree about half the mac articles should be cut (most of them are obvious flaimbait), this one on the other hand was very usefull..
Btw incase you hadn't noticed geeks like apple now (similar to how we like linux), so your definatly going to hear more about them in the future. It's just the way the apple turns (ha ha funny!)
Stop Whining. Just change your preferences and you'll never have to read about Macs again.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
How long do you think it will take Apple to crush this little workaround? On a side note, this would be an excellent backup solution for medium sized companies using Macs. Is there a way to get it to work on mixed Windows/Mac networks? A Windows backup client that would work with this?
Are you afraid to become fruity? :)
my sig
Btw incase you hadn't noticed geeks like apple now (similar to how we like linux), so your definatly going to hear more about them in the future. It's just the way the apple turns (ha ha funny!)
before the author's served with a DMCA complaint (q.v. the threat against the dealer that provided a patch to allow Mac users to use the iDVD software they paid for with an external burner). Get the information while you can.
However, BSD is losing market share at a dramatic rate, as you should well know by now ;-)
...getting a fixed IP costs way more than a .mac account.
Somehow, it seems to me it could not possibly be.. (nor is it very ethical)
According to the article you need to configure your server to return trialAccountDaysLeft = -1 How long before Apple changes that variable name, or obfuscates it somehow?
Writers imply. Readers infer.
....but I think it should be noted that this doesn't depend on any BSD specific stuff, and can (pretty much, gotta get that https server up) just as easily be done under the /. championed linux.
I like this idea. So we can emulate .Mac servers, BNETD servers, advertising servers, Cydoor servers, and even :CueCat servers. Setting up independent servers has the obvious advantage of being independent from an ultimate authority, decentralizing the service and making it more useful to the Internet community. So I ask Slashdot, what commericial or otherwise propertiary server will be reverse-engineered and cloned next? My vote is in for an Oscar/TOC server so one could use AOL-IM to communicate with one's LAN.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
"-2, didn't read article". :)
If there's something like "This software is to be used with Apple .Mac servers only" in the EULA you're screwed. If not, Dantz Retrospect is history.
Don't forget to think different.
"your definatly going to hear"
Wow. You are a really fucking stupid piece of shit.
Isn't interoperability considered fair use in copyright law (Patent milage may vary). IANAL, however.
;)
;))
I would assume that the author of the parent post is opposed to SAMBA and the SAMBA Howto information
(I confess, I don't use Samba anymore-- without Windows systems it sort of loses its appeal
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Jeremy Beker has more informations about using iSync to syncronize calenders, addresses, etc. without using .Mac
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
way to go, twit.
That's MY IP number....
Someone sold me that one awhile back.
nbfn
Setup your web server to return:
{ payload = {iToolsBackupActivated = Y; trialAccountDaysLeft = -1; }; statusCode = success; }
Actually, surprisingly enough, it is not a self-referring acronym. It stands for Berkeley Software Distribution.
I am more interested in figuring out how to make a PC (Linux, Windows or whatever) appear as a mac to .Mac. Of course the other way is cool too! :)
Gorkman
Does this mean it will be down half the time and slow as hell?
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
What? This is in stark contrast to all the "BSD is dying" trolls that I've been reading. You're not like any troll I've ever seen before!
"A clever fellow named Otto Moerbeek has publish a short article on getting an OpenBSD box to emulate a .Mac server. Using Apache/DAV/SSL and a roll a duct-tape, he describes how you can get most .Mac functionality without paying Apple for it."
Is it just me or is anyone else trying to figure out what the duct tape is for?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
pfffft....
I've been doing almost the exact same thing as described in this article with Linux for ages. We even use it (WebDAV) for mapping Windows drives over SSL. It was never hard to set up, I don't know what the big deal is. Maybe it was hard to set up on *BSD, I dunno. With Debian it was just a matter of apt-getting what I needed, a little configuration and it just works.
I have used many a *BSD machine by the way. I used to use OpenBSD for my firewall and have worked on many NetBSD & FreeBSD projects. However, I now mostly use Windows and Linux because they have better vendor support at the moment (nVidia, Wacom, etc.).
Really. I wanted to see an innovative use of duct tape on a Mac.
Lousy Slashdot editors. Convincing me to read a story when there's actually no duct tape involved.
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
Provided by Mr HOSTBOT
RudeDude
Perl/Linux/PHP hacker
*thinks* .mac is really mac.com and should be referred to as mac.. Then I noticed how familiar it sounded... /.! Duh! You are hilarious, sir, quite hilarious!
Oh! I get it now!
I thought you were discussing how
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's nothing illegal about changing your /etc/hosts file. There's nothing illegal about setting up a WebDAV server for yourself.
This isn't illegal. But try advertising a public iDisk server, or try redistributing Apple's Backup utility & you'll probably be needing a lawyer.
Apple may be quick about protecting a "look and feel," but to keep Microsoft from "innovating" them any more, I think they have every right. This has been around for months, been advertised on MacSlash & is still running strong.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Flamebit
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
No one is advocating or "pirating" any software.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Now I can charge myself $99 a year!
A self signed certificate will do, since Backup does not check the certificate.
That's really bad. It means that anyone can launch a man-in-the-middle attack against someone using .Mac for backup purposes. I'm sure people are using .Mac to backup their Quicken financial data and other things they'd consider sensitive.
I hope Apple fixes that...I'd be pretty pissed if I were a .mac user.
The fact is that a lot of people want .Mac functionality but with a little bit more control on their part. I think that Apple may initially fight this but eventually will be forced to allow user controlled .Mac servers. Hell, perhaps they'll see it as an opportunity and sell a XServe.Mac.
no, i am not. are you?
The duct tape is for wart removal....
/. article about a month ago.
A
-Tim
Does Richard Dean Anderson use a mac?
I guess as a good guy he should...
Berkeley Standard Distribution in my book.
ok, it's faking one bit of it so you can make backup work.
I'm one of those that thinks .mac is a decent value and paid my money for it. I also find it ironic that Microsoft has yet to find any .Net services that people want to buy. MSN 8? I still haven't figured out what you get with MSN 8 that is so special. Spam filtering? You could do much better and get better filtering results by spending $30/year on a spamcop.net e-mail account.
I originally thought that .mac was a cheesy ripoff of the .net name, but now I am loving the irony of Apple ripping off a Microsoft idea instead of the other way around.
The backup software is intended only for people who have paid for .Mac services.
Apple also provides the software formerly known as iTools to those who have applied for the limited-term free trial of .Mac service.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Dude, I saw them at Penningtons, Bradford the night before!
You did? Write about it HERE ! We want to hear about their tour..
>How can I upload my iCal to it and have it
>magically generate the calendar html files?
You didn't do your homework do you ? Check out PHP iCalendar. Also iPhoto can export pictures out in HTML, no problem.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
they'll just use the auto-update feature to fix this obvious "bug".
but likely not really ethical or truly legal. but i am surprised that apple does not allow this to work with an ftp server or servers other than .mac. if the .mac service is worth it, people will pay, though i doubt that $99 is the correct price. a business .mac service with realistic amounts of storage would be really worth a good chunk of change.
We use Novell iFolder at work. It's a very cool technology that installs a small iFolder client program (no Novell client neccessary. The program sits in the background after you login and keeps a subdirectory of your My Documents folder synchronized with the iFolder server. You can install the iFolder client in any computer and have access to that folder. It works well since the files are still local on your computer once synced, the client only synchronizes a files *changes* not the whole file (less bandwidth used) and there's a web client that works on pretty much any browser/platform. I'd love to see something similar done in open source, it wouldn't be to hard to build using Apache/PHP and some scripts, you could have native clients for Win/Linux/Mac/BSD/Commodore64, whatever.
Yes, it seems very reasonable for Apple to leave the possibility open and not block it. That way they don't deprive their expert users of a useful facility, but at the same time they don't have to document, explain, support... something that gives them no revenue and would be hell to support anyway because it involves non-Apple machines.
From the Apple iCal website:
.Mac membership or a WebDAV server. "
"Publishing calendars on the Internet requires a
So Apple expects, condones, and appreciates what Morebeer has done.
I don't know anything about .Mac, but if the main point is backups and file synchronization, why is proprietary software necessary? Hfspax works great for archiving files without losing their macintosh resource fork, and unison is a wonderful file syncrhonization that I use to sync up my various Linux and MacOS X accounts.
Find free books.
Can anyone who knows of other free imap email accounts please list them here? Apple cut off my Mac.com email account after twice asking them not to, and since they have chosen to wrap up Mac.com email accounts with .Mac and charge me $160 for one useful email account and a bunch of other completely useless services, I would like to see what sort of other IMAP accounts are out there, preferably ones that can be interfaced with Outlook Express.
Thanks.
Time to feed the trolls...
Unlike the teeming masses of trolls and ACs, I try to confine my comments to what I know. So, if other "DISTOS" have this functionality, then that's great. I don't use other "DISTOS," so I just don't know.
Don't bother me with another troll, I've met my quota of troll feeding for this month.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
You know, this isn't really giving you all of the functionality of .Mac. Some of us aren't HTML-fluent, and this doesn't let you use the homepage programs (which made me a much nicer page for my newborn than the ATT Broadband tools did). I'm sure that here on Slashdot most people will scoff at this, but I personally find it to be the best way to build a relatively nice looking place to post movies, pictures, sounds, etc. for the grandmother to download... and those of you with children will most assuredly agree this is a big deal.
There are lots of neat things that .mac does (I paid my $50), but it'd be great if I could do them locally. Backup is a HUGE one - 100Base-T is a lot better than DSL! But being able to use the pretty slick webmail for my own mail domain would be very useful as well, instead of having to forward to my mac.com address. Local iCal would be very nice as well.
.mac services to my local users. Sure, there are variety of ways to hack it together, but if it all "just worked" that'd be better yet.
I can certainly understand why Apple doesn't want to make these available everywhere for free, but it'd be great if MacOS X Server 10.3 or whatever made it possible to provide some
This would certainly give me a reason to pay $1K to upgrade from the 10.1.5 server I'm running right now.
And on an unrelated note, 10.3 REALLY should include a graphical DNS admin. It's really jarring to have all these great, simple controls for the whole server experience, except DNS. Webmin works, but still, that's hardly the MacOS X vision!
My video compression blog
But being able to use the pretty slick webmail for my own mail domain would be very useful as well, instead of having to forward to my mac.com address.
Well, if you use Entourage or Outlook Express, check this out. It'll give you web-based control of either of those mail apps, as well as iTunes. I haven't given it as thorough a test as i'd like yet, but if it's customizable enough, I'm hoping I can scrap the Entourage web access stuff I've written in AppleScript for my own use.
~Philly
I'd much rather they spend the time and make Apple Mail Server not suck. Maybe replace it with a GUI for Postfix or something. ;)
The DNS service works ok, you just need to tinker with vi & the zone files.
I'm sure they'll add a GUI to DNS eventually. It's been a commonly requested feature for quite a while now.
Dude --- 10.1.5 Server to 10.2 Server is a $20 upgrade within a certain window of purchase. Basically if you bought anything to do with Mac OS X Server 10.1.x (on a machine or retail) on/after July 17, 2002, you're eligible to receive 10.2 Server for $20. I don't know if this applies to your specific situation, but I could have very well just saved you $980 (I take cashier's checks, btw). You probably want to check it out and check it out soon: deal expires on Nov. 30 2002.
...or just plain clueless? You decide.
Yeah, I switched my secondary iTools account to fastmail, and it works great. The only problem with the free account is there is no outgoiung mail server, so you have to use your ISP's. I can live with this, so i switched over. Fastmail also gives you a wide selection of domain names to chose from, and has a webmail function, so you can check your mail on the road as well. Yay for fastmail.fm!
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
What's wrong with the mail server? My needs aren't complex, but it's been running without a hitch for me for ages.
As for t"just tinker with via & the zone files," that is rather antithetical to whole reason why I'd use MacOS X Server in the first place! Back in the summer of 1989, I worked at a company that did banking software, and the whole company was on SCO. vi was the standard word processor!
I'm a pico man now.
My video compression blog
More detailed info on how to set them up here
Or would that be .Sucks?
Are you kidding? $99/yr for membership ($50/1stYR for charter members) - including 15MB of mail storage, IMAP mail access, web mail, free backup software, free antivirus software, free synchronization for address book and calendar and you think this is the incorrect price? That's $8.33/month. If you think that's a bad deal, then show me something better for a single user.
with AMS? Check out the Mac OS X Server mailing list (at lists.apple.com) archives. The vast majority of users have replaced it with Communigate Pro or Postfix/uw-imap/ipop3d
;) Like I said, I'm pretty sure they'll add some sort of GUI to the DNS server. It's a commonly requested feature and honestly, I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't take a stab at it with the next rev of OS X Server. I'm surprised that 10.2 Server didn't get an upgrade in that realm. At least 10.2 Server got webmail built in. :-)
*spam filtering is too limited
*pitiful support for multiple domains
*no logical way to add server-side mail filtering, like procmail or spamassassin.
*handles mail like ASIP used to.
It's fine for a small office, and I have my OS X Server getting mail for 1 subdomain that I've had for years, but now that they're touting it as they are, the mail server could definately use an upgrade.
And you can still use pico on the zone files!
If Apple sold the .Mac clients as a client-suite, they would have to commit
publically to open protocols, not merely use them. The way it is, they can
change things around whenever they like and leave any intranet that has come
to rely on them high-and-dry. And change around things they can because
of the update pipeline that every Internet-connected Mac more-or-less has
to subscribe to.
.Mac services for a
fraction of Apple's service. And intranets and corporate users would
end up using their own internal servers.
But Apple probably will never commit to using specific protocols that because then third parties could make a business of offering
If you think this is legitimate, maybe Apple will next start charging for iTunes. They can wipe it from your disk any time they please (through one of their software updates), and they never promised you that you could keep using it for free. Or maybe the whole OS will just stop working on Jan 1 2003--nobody ever guaranteed that you could keep using it indefinitely.
Neat. Under MacOS 9 you'll have to use a real WebDAV client (!= Network Browser) such as Goliath
In case someone is interested, I created a quick and dirty how-to here
I just want an iSync replacement server instead of .Mac. I find it odd that if I buy a third party handheld, I can sync to it just fine, but I need a .Mac account to sync to my Apple hardware (Powerbook). Doesn't this just discourage Powerbook and iBook sales in favor of PDAs for those people who are borderline (well, that would mostly be iBook sales, but still). Seems an odd approach to marketing to lose some $1000 sales to make a few $100 sales. As my dad was fond of saying, "If it doesn't help make a sale, don't do it!" I'll be waiting for the bean-counters to settle it out with the actuaries.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
this is ancient news (and... didn't you gys already cover the o'reilly version ????).
- I am made of meat.
And on an unrelated note, 10.3 REALLY should include a graphical DNS admin. It's really jarring to have all these great, simple controls for the whole server experience, except DNS. Webmin works, but still, that's hardly the MacOS X vision!
If you want a good, easy to use DNS server, try MyDNS. It includes a nice PHP based web interface.
do you just paste this in on every mac article? maybe you should change your prefs :)
My vote's for fastmail too (postinbox is one of their secondary domain names).
Jesus, you are a whiny little bitch. I bet it's hard to make friends while you're so busy crying about the moral standards of slashdot users (without having even the slightest understanding of what you're talking about, I might add).
P.S. No one likes you. Not even your mom.
The *reason* these "hacks" and "workarounds" work is *not* because of Apple's ineptitude...its because for once, their stuff *isn't* proprietary :)
.Mac services are by design based on Open Standards: iCal is, well, iCalendar/vCal...iDisks are WebDAV (they used to be crappy AFP volumes...), hell, even iSync uses...wait for it...syncML! XMLRPC and SOAP ties it all together, with some fancy WebObjects stuff on the server side.
.NET or Passport fufu...its all off the shelf...to extensions, no tricks.
/. login...
Apple has been moving away from so-called "proprietary" hardware and software for years, people. A PowerMac G4 is as about as "proprietary" as a Dell, Compaq or Sony Vaio. They design their own logic boards, too.
Apple is using SSL/SASL for the authentication. See this is no
And *this* is what makes what Apple is doing so, for want of a better word, cool. Other Unix vendors could learn a lot from what Apple is doing. All this stuff has been out there for ages, but no one seems to have had the talent, or insight to tie it all together and put it in a pretty box, on the *software* side.
Man I need to dig up my damned
You can sync your PDA and Apple hardware just fine using iSync, you just can't store the synched info on a remote server, unless you hack one up as described in other posts.
-- My Weblog.
That's why this is not a threat to .Mac - people like you who can see the added value of using the paid service that Apple is offering.
(Not to mention using Apple's incredible bandwidth to store the 50MB quicktime movie of the kids...)
This is just a sort of neat hack for those of us who like this kind of stuff...
-- My Weblog.
not a troll. he is correct. myself and EVERYONE i fucking know who knows their shit HATES this fucking mac zealotry here.
macslahcrap. slashcode reflects the confused and idiotic state of mind of the editors.
all i have to say is refactor that pile of shit and that the editors and random moderators fucking grow up. this god damn anime, eugenia loli the fat pig regugitatoin and this mac zealotry is bullshit.
VA Linux Systems. Shares almost worthless. Why? Because Fat ugly stupid people like Malda and Fat Girl Neel work there and do work like Slashdot. Confused, stupid shit with guess what?
NO CONCERN FOR THE CUSTOMER BASE. YOU FUCKING IDIOT EDITORS DONT **LISTEN** TO WHAT ANYONE NORMAL HAS TO SAY YOU FUCKING DELUSION FAT IDIOTS.