Mac_proxy - a proxy for wikipedia, reddit, chatgpt etc for old http bound computers

Mu0n

Active Tinkerer
Oct 29, 2021
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www.youtube.com

so this video made the rounds, and in it, Hunter Irving exposes how a linux flask server can act as a proxy for his Mac Plus using the very old MacWeb2.0c browser (but any old computer that can set up a http proxy is fair game, ie a SE/30, a windows xp machine, etc)

Places that work with it:

chatgpt, claude, hackaday, hacksburg, hunterirving, npr, override, reddit, waybackmachine, weather, websimulator, wiby, wikipedia, notyoutube
 
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Mu0n

Active Tinkerer
Oct 29, 2021
602
555
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Quebec
www.youtube.com
I'm currently looking to run this server on my Windows machine through WSL and I'm getting my behind kicked thoroughly. I'm very untrained in all things linux/ubuntu/whatever distro you want and I try not to mess with network stuff if I can help it usually - sadly, this project requires a HEAVY hand in both.

My gear in the retro side:
Mac Plus with BlueSCSI v2 w/ pico W, booting with 7.5.3 and can MacTCP ping local addresses on my LAN, I can run Mac2.0c and it shows a connection to my wifi

Mac SE/30 with BlueSCSI v2 w/ pico W, booting with 7.5.3 and can MacTCP ping local addresses on my LAN, connect to a hosted ftp on my modern PC, or connect to a local http python server hosted on my modern PC as well. It shows a connection to my wifi.

My gear on the modern side:
Windows 11 i5-13600KF PC, with WSL installed, with Ubuntu, updated.

I copied a new config.py from config.py.example and uncommented a bunch of stuff I wanted to try out.

I used this trail of commands inside WSL:

Code:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-virtualenv
sudo apt install python3-venv
./start_macproxy.sh --port=5001

I went to the proxy part of a mac browser and tried a bunch of stuff for the address:
http://192.168.0.18:5001 (local IP for my windows 11 PC)
http://172.xxx.xxx.xxx:5001 (address stated by the mac_proxy script as it launches)
http://172.xxx.xxx.xxx:5001 (DIFFERENT address I get if I run this
Code:
ip route show | grep -i default | awk '{ print $3}'

I can't establish a connection to the proxy

I can't continue further on my own, really need a willing guru to help me. I can't decipher this page (apparently as I learned) enough to get to the finish line. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...distribution-from-your-local-area-network-lan

The Venn diagram section of linux gurus and windows WSL gurus is really, really thin. Let me know if you are in it!




edit - with the help of polpo, ian scott and gutbomb, I ditched WSL and just went straight to python


Code:
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 proxy.py --port 5001

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