MacIP.net

MacIP protocol

MacIPRpi (BETA for 6.02)

MacIPRpi:
MacIP on a Raspberry Pi. Now in beta.....a brand new version.

Latest release Beta Release MacIPRpi-6.02 (1.5G)
MD5 hash: a91086162d16343ad55bc947a9287cfd

MacIP.net gives you a MacIP gateway out of the box on a Raspberry Pi thanks to the Linux port of macipgw done by Stefan Bethke. And the MacIPRpi is loaded with software to get you going with file sharing with almost any computer. New or old. Macintosh or non Macintosh.

BasiliskII
MacIPRpi at work for a MacIP session in BaseliskII emulator

Macintosh computers can connect to each other using LocalTalk by linking their printer ports with appropriate cabling. However, a LocalTalk network cannot directly communicate using TCP/IP to access the Internet. To bridge this gap, IP packets must be encapsulated within the AppleTalk DDP protocol to travel across the LocalTalk network.
A specialized piece of hardware or software is required to perform this encapsulation and decapsulation. This device unpacks the TCP/IP packets from the AppleTalk protocol and forwards them to other TCP/IP networks, enabling communication with the Internet.
In the old days we had router devices like a FastPath to do this. Now a combination of a LocalTalk bridge and a MacIPRpi can do the trick.

Their are two types of LocalTalk bridges you can use:

If you have a LocalTalk bridge you can use the MacIPRpi. If you don’t have one you can use an emulator like BasiliskII or SheepShaver to play around.

Download the image for a Raspberry Pi from:

https://cdn.macip.net/MacIPRpi-6.02.img.xz (1.5G)
MD5 hash: a91086162d16343ad55bc947a9287cfd


I tested myself on a Raspberry Pi 4 . (Would be nice to find out on which types the image also works...like a Raspberry Pi 5)

Use command 

dd
on Linux systems (and MacOSX) to put the image on the SD disk.
This will be a command like this: 

xz -d < MacIPRpi-6.02.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

On a Linux/Unix/MacOSX system you can check the name of the SD card with the command:

dmesg


On Mac/Linux/Windows you can also use:  Raspberry Pi Imager
If you have to choose an Operating System, choose for Custom / Select a custom .img from your computer. And then select the MacIPRpi-6.02.img.xz file. No need to unzip first.

Connect your MacIPRpi to your network with a network cable. Do not try to connect the MacIPRpi with wifi. No Appletalk over WIFI! Also don’t try to connect it directly to a Macintosh with some kind of cabling trick… Just treat it as one of you home computers. Use it behind a router/firewall with no open connection from the Internet for security.

It will get an IP address from your (home) router if you power it on. After a few minutes it will be ready. At first boot it will also restart to adjust to the current used SD card. So to be sure let it run for 5 minutes. Take this time because the appletalk daemon needs some time to settle. It is ready when the red led starts blinking. Even no need to connect a monitor.

If you want you can login from your Macintosh with Telnet or SSH. On your old Macintosh with MacIP configured you can access it by IP address 172.16.2.1.
If you want to connect from a Mac OSX, Windows or Linux machine you can connect to maciprpi.local. If you want to login username is: macipgw and password: macipgw

You can become root by entering

$sudo -i

and password macipgw

What does the MacIPRpi gives you?


Sorry. Some pictures are a little bit old.... but this is how it looks sort of...

MacIPRpi seen from a Windows machine

MacIPRpi seen from an Apple MacBook

MacIPRpi seen from a iPhone

For ‘power users’ who want to do more with a MacIPRpi.

desktop-theme.png
  • It is a full usable Linux machine. LXDE as window manager. You can connect to it with X2go or RDP.
    On a Windows 10 or 11 machine you can use this cmd line command:
    mstsc /v:maciprpi.local
    Or connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Remember to login with user macipgw. You can set console/gui auto-login/no autologin in raspi-config
    (1. System Options / S5 Boot / Auto Login Select boot into desktop or to command line)
  • Splash boot screen for quiet boot, but adjustable in raspi-config
    (1. System Options / S6 Splash Screen Choose graphical splash screen or text boot)
  • Gparted for disk management
  • Rpi monitor for system stats. on http://maciprpi.local:8888/
  • sshd started at boot. User macipgw can login with ssh. Password is also macipgw. If you like you can login as root with password macipgw or do a sudo su and enter the macipgw user password: macipgw
  • telnetd started at boot. You can login (as user macipgw or root) with telnet.

  • macipgw user password is macipgw, root password is macipgw
  • Host name resolution. You can point to gw.macip.net and it is resolved as 172.16.2.1 and you can point to mac04.macip.net as your Macintosh with IP address 172.16.2.4.
  • Dynamic motd. You see a lot of information, like all the Apple/Macintosh and AppleTalk devices in your network
  • Small image, automatic resize to the max of your SD card on first boot. Will reboot after that.
    Use a 8GB card as minimum. 16GB or more is comfortable.
  • Installed nmap for testing
  • Installed aecho for testing
  • Installed nbplkup for finding AppleTalk devices
  • Installed tcpdump for listening to atalk packages.
    (tcpdump -i eth0 atalk)
  • For ftp login with the macipgw account use password macipgw. Or anonymous login with user anonymous and any password. Anonymous can upload in directory incoming (/AppleShare/SHARED_DISK/FTP/incoming)
  • Web server on port 80 so you can test a web browser. Point your historic browser to http://maciprpi.local or http://172.16.2.1 and you will see a web page based on the first web site at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland)

    Yes... Own picture...I have been at the spot at CERN in 2024 ...
    Where the World Wide Web was born
    See also: http://info.cern.ch – home of the first website
  • Lynx web browser. The text only web browser so you can surf the web like in the old days.
  • Elinks web browser. The text only web browser so you can surf the web like in the old days.
  • You can find more information about macipgw and the linux port on: https://github.com/zero2sixd/macipgw
  • Raspbian Pi OS Lite with kernel:
    Linux maciprpi 6.6.51+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.6.51-1+rpt3 (2024-10-08) aarch64
  • raspi-config for advanced configuration
  • Avahi zeroconf in place. You can find it on your network with DNS: maciprpi.local
  • Add any package you want to add. Use apt install .. to install and apt-cache search … to find packages

If you have feedback or tips you can reach me at info (at) macip.net or at the 68kmla forum:
https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?members/mactjaap.895/

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