Extensions

This fork of Macproxy adds support for "extensions", which extend Macproxy's functionality via custom modules. Extensions are stored in the extensions directory and can be enabled or disabled via a config.py file.

Enabling Extensions

To enable extensions, follow these steps:

1. In the extensions directory, rename config.py.template to config.py :

   mv extensions/config.py.template extensions/config.py

2. In config.py, enable/disable extensions by uncommenting/commenting lines in the ENABLED_EXTENSIONS list:

   ENABLED_EXTENSIONS = [
   	#disabled_extension,
   	"enabled_extension"
   	]

Running Macproxy with Extensions

Run the start_macproxy.sh script as usual. If an enabled extension relies on any external packages, start_macproxy.sh will automatically install them from the extension's included requirements.txt file.

./start_macproxy.sh

Example Extension: ChatGPT

A ChatGPT extension is provided as an example. This extension serves a simple web interface that lets users interact with OpenAI's GPT models.

To enable the ChatGPT extension, open extensions/config.py, uncomment the chatgpt line in the ENABLED_EXTENSIONS list, and replace YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY_HERE with your actual OpenAI API key.

open_ai_api_key = "YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY_HERE"

ENABLED_EXTENSIONS = [
	"chatgpt"
]

Once enabled, Macproxy will reroute requests to http://chatgpt.com to this inteface.

Other Extensions

hackaday.com

Serves a paired-down, text-only version of the site, complete with articles, comments, and search functionality.

npr.org

Serves articles from the text-only version of the site (text.npr.org) and transforms relative urls into absolute urls for compatibility with MacWeb 2.0.

wiby.me

Fixes an issue where clicking "surprise me..." would not redirect users to the final destination.

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Macproxy

A simple HTTP proxy script for putting early computers on the Web. Despite its name, there is nothing Mac specific about this proxy. It was originally designed with compatibility with the MacWeb web browser in mind, but has been tested on a variety of vintage web browsers since.

The proxy.py script runs a Flask server that takes all requests and proxies them, using html_utils.py to strip tags that are incompatible with, or pulls in contents that aren't parsable by old browsers such as Netscape 4 or MacWeb.

The proxy server listens to port 5001 by default, but the port number can be changed using a command line parameter.

Requirements

Python3 for running the script, venv if you want to use the virtual environment, or pip if you want to install libraries manually.

sudo apt install python3 python3-venv python3-pip

Usage

The start_macproxy.sh shell script will create and manage a venv Python environment, and if successful launch the proxy script.

./start_macproxy.sh

Launch with a specific port number (defaults to port 5000):

./start_macproxy.sh --port=5001

You may also start the Python script by itself, using system Python.

pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 proxy.py

Launch with a specific port number:

python3 proxy.py --port 5001

Advanced Options

Use the advanced options to change how Macproxy presents itself to the web, and how it processes the data it gets back.

By default, Macproxy will forward the actual User-Agent string of the originating browser in its request headers. This option overrides this with an arbitrary string, allowing you to spoof as any browser. For instance, Opera Mini 8.0 for J2ME:

python3 proxy.py --user-agent "Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/8.0.35158/36.2534; U; en) Presto/2.12.423 Version/12.16"

Selects the BeatifulSoup html formatter that Macproxy will use, e.g. the minimal formatter:

python3 proxy.py --html-formatter minimal

Turns off the conversion of select typographic symbols to ASCII characters:

python3 proxy.py --disable-char-conversion

Refer to Macproxy's helptext for more details:

python3 proxy.py -h

systemd service

This repo comes with a systemd service configuration template. At the time of writing, systemd is the de-facto standard solution for managing daemons on contemporary Linux distributions. Edit the macproxy.service file and point the ExecStart= parameter to the location of the start_macproxy.sh file, e.g. on a Raspberry Pi:

ExecStart=/home/pi/macproxy/start_macproxy.sh

Then copy the service file to /etc/systemd/system and enable the service:

sudo cp macproxy.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable macproxy
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start macproxy