Other Aqua Proxy: Fix connection issues on OS X 10.6 – 10.9.

[Wowfunhappy]

You may have previously used my "Legacy Mac Proxy" package. However, I have completely recreated the software from scratch and given it a new name. I think starting fresh with a new thread will make things less confusing. So, without further ado...

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Aqua Proxy​

Old versions of Mac OS X have trouble talking to the modern internet. Aqua Proxy can help.

Aqua Proxy is a type of software typically referred to as a "Man-in-the-Middle Proxy Server". It sits between you and the internet, capturing all of your computer's traffic and modifying it to be compatible with modern servers before sending it on its way. Aqua Proxy won't fix everything, but it will fix a lot of little things. For example, Aqua Proxy can fix problems with:

• Viewing remote images in the Mail app.
• Subscribing to calendars in the Calendar app.
• Playing live streams in QuickTime.
• Loading Help Center pages in various apps.
• Reading Wikipedia in the Dictionary app. (OS X 10.7+)

Aqua Proxy runs locally on your computer so that no unencrypted data leaves your network.

Download

Once downloaded, make sure to check out the readme for additional information, including how to set up IMAP email to use the proxy.

P.S. Aqua Proxy's uninstaller will also uninstall my old "Legacy Mac Proxy" package. If you previously used Legacy Mac Proxy, run Aqua Proxy's uninstaller first.

P.P.S. For now, I'm saying that Aqua Proxy is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 – 10.9 Mavericks, because these are the four operating systems I have explicitly tested on. The package should also work on OS X 10.10 and 10.11, but you'll have to try it and let me know!

 

[Wowfunhappy]

.

 

[iPodNano3]

bravo

 

[GalacticStag]

You may have previously used my "Legacy Mac Proxy" package. However, I have completely recreated the software from scratch and given it a new name. I think starting fresh with a new thread will make things less confusing. So, without further ado...

---

Aqua Proxy​

Old versions of Mac OS X have trouble talking to the modern internet. Aqua Proxy can help.

Aqua Proxy is a type of software typically referred to as a "Man-in-the-Middle Proxy Server". It sits between you and the internet, capturing all of your computer's traffic and modifying it to be compatible with modern servers before sending it on its way. Aqua Proxy won't fix everything, but it will fix a lot of little things. For example, Aqua Proxy can fix problems with:

• Viewing remote images in the Mail app.
• Subscribing to calendars in the Calendar app.
• Playing live streams in QuickTime.
• Loading Help Center pages in various apps.
• Reading Wikipedia in the Dictionary app. (OS X 10.7+)

Aqua Proxy runs locally on your computer so that no unencrypted data leaves your network.

Download

Once downloaded, make sure to check out the readme for additional information, including how to set up IMAP email to use the proxy.

P.S. Aqua Proxy's uninstaller will also uninstall my old "Legacy Mac Proxy" package. If you previously used Legacy Mac Proxy, run Aqua Proxy's uninstaller first.

P.P.S. For now, I'm saying that Aqua Proxy is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 – 10.9 Mavericks, because these are the four operating systems I have explicitly tested on. The package should also work on OS X 10.10 and 10.11, but you'll have to try it and let me know!

Fantastic! Managed to make Apple Mail work (after some setup issues), although for some reason, Safari doesn't work

 

[GalacticStag]

Fantastic! Managed to make Apple Mail work (after some setup issues), although for some reason, Safari doesn't work

After some testing, i've managed to see what works (at least for me):

-Some 2009/2010 browsers (Opera 10.6 and Chrome 7.0)
-iWeb '09 website uploading (though i assume that depends more on my ftp than the proxy considering it's an http website)
-Apple Mail (Gmail and iCloud Mail)
-Connection to TL Legacy servers (sorta...)
-iChat AIM using NINA's service (though that worked before)

And what doesn't work:
-Safari 5 (Any HTTPS website, with legacy mac proxy Safari was incredibly useable)
-iTunes Store (Again, legacy mac proxy made it useable after editing the hosts file)
-By extension, Podcasts don't work anymore thanks to that. :/
-App Store (But that didn't work before anyway lmaooo)
-Remote images on Apple Mail (?! how?)

I know it's an initial release, but idk how some things that worked before don't work anymore 0.o, hope that they get solved in an update!

 

[Wowfunhappy]

@GalacticStag Oh no, all of that stuff should work except for the App Store. There should not be any regressions from Legacy Mac Proxy.

Can you please:

• Share the output of running launchctl list | grep AquaProxy in the Terminal
• Show me some screenshots of System Preferences → Network and System Preferences → Network → [your active connection] → Advanced → Proxies
• Check Console.app for logs related to Aqua Proxy, particularly soon after rebooting and when a request fails, and share them with me
• Confirm that the Aqua Proxy certificate is installed and trusted in Keychain Access's System Keychain.
• Confirm that ISRG Root X1, USERTrust RSA Certification Authority, COMODO ECC Certification Authority, DigiCert Global Root G2, and DigiCert Global Root G3 are installed and trusted in Keychain Access's System Keychain.
• In Safari, if you try to view a page and click the lock icon in the upper right corner, what do you see?

This is every troubleshooting step I can think of right now.

Edit:

-iTunes Store (Again, legacy mac proxy made it useable after editing the hosts file)

What do you edit in the hosts file for the iTunes Store to work on Snow Leopard? This is probably something I can add to the proxy itself, since it can redirect arbitrary URLs.

Edit2: Also, stupid question, but before you try any of the above—have you tried restarting your computer? You shouldn't need to, but worth a try if you haven't.

 

[GalacticStag]

@GalacticStag Oh no, all of that stuff should work except for the App Store. There should not be any regressions from Legacy Mac Proxy.

Can you please:

• Share the output of running launchctl list | grep AquaProxy in the Terminal
• Show me some screenshots of System Preferences → Network and System Preferences → Network → [your active connection] → Advanced → Proxies
• Check Console.app for logs related to Aqua Proxy, particularly soon after rebooting and when a request fails, and share them with me
• Confirm that the Aqua Proxy certificate is installed and trusted in Keychain Access's System Keychain.
• Confirm that ISRG Root X1, USERTrust RSA Certification Authority, COMODO ECC Certification Authority, DigiCert Global Root G2, and DigiCert Global Root G3 are installed and trusted in Keychain Access's System Keychain.
• In Safari, if you try to view a page and click the lock icon in the upper right corner, what do you see?

This is every troubleshooting step I can think of right now.

Edit:

What do you edit in the hosts file for the iTunes Store to work on Snow Leopard? This is probably something I can add to the proxy itself, since it can redirect arbitrary URLs.

Edit2: Also, stupid question, but before you try any of the above—have you tried restarting your computer? You shouldn't need to, but worth a try if you haven't.

Ok, it seems to be working now, for whatever reason. VERY weird that yesterday it didn't work. I uninstalled LMP (legacy mac proxy) through the aqua uninstaller, didn't uninstall the certs, and then installed aqua proxy. Everything seems to work now! And btw, i did restart my computer yesterday when it initially didn't work. So for it to work now is quite strange, i have to say.


iTunes store works again too, after reinstalling the proxy. i added these lines, as per a reddit post, and the hotmail one fixes MSN 3.0 iirc.


76.217.61.232 phobos.apple.com

76.217.61.232 init.itunes.apple.com
76.217.61.232 ax.init.itunes.apple.com
143.198.4.104 messenger.hotmail.com

Anyways, NOW that everything seems to work, thank you for making this, and apologies if i gave you a little scare with my initial encounters!

 

[GalacticStag]

PS: Dictionary.app started crashing after my second install of aqua proxy. reinstalling it from my 10.6.3 install dvd via pacifist fixed it!

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Ok, it seems to be working now, for whatever reason. VERY weird that yesterday it didn't work. I uninstalled LMP (legacy mac proxy) through the aqua uninstaller, didn't uninstall the certs, and then installed aqua proxy. Everything seems to work now!

Phew! This was bothering me all day, so glad to hear it's working!

PS: Dictionary.app started crashing after my second install of aqua proxy. reinstalling it from my 10.6.3 install dvd via pacifist fixed it!

I'm not sure why it appeared to only happen after your second install, but this is (has to be) from Legacy Mac Proxy. You may notice that Aqua Proxy no longer allows users to install the Dictionary Patch on Snow Leopard. The uninstaller should have removed it, but I guess it didn't for you.

Now, here's the interesting thing—the Dictionary Patch actually works perfectly fine on Snow Leopard, insofar as it does what it's supposed to, it makes the Dictionary app respect the proxy settings in System Preferences and in so doing allows the app to actually connect to Wikipedia again.

The problem is that once the app can connect to Wikipedia, the data it gets back causes the app to crash! I wasted half a day figuring this out, I thought there was a problem with the patch, but the patch works perfectly!

The app is making requests to this endpoint (search for "earth"): https://search.wikimedia.org/?site=wikipedia&lang=en&search=earth&limit=31

Whatever API this is, Wikipedia must have turned it off, because now it just returns a web page. The Dictionary app, clearly not expecting to get back html data, completely chokes and actually crashes. Lion and above use a different API that still works.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

@Wowfunhappy, any chance of a 10.5.8/9 Leopard version of your proxy?

The problem is that AquaProxy is built using Go (because Go includes a standard library that does a lot of the work for me). As far as I know, there is no way to run binaries compiled by any version of Go on Leopard.

 

[rampancy]

I admit I haven't following the original thread on your original Legacy Mac Proxy project (for which I'm eternally grateful to, as it's been essential to help keeping my old Mac collection alive!), but what are the improvements/advantages/changes of Aqua Proxy over Legacy Mac Proxy? (Apart from the use of Go instead of Squid.)