mk6i-open-oscar-server/docs/MACOS.md

Open OSCAR Server Quickstart for macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

This guide explains how to download, configure and run Open OSCAR Server on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon).

1. Download Open OSCAR Server

Grab the latest macOS release from the Releases page for your platform (Intel or Apple Silicon).

Because the Open OSCAR Server binary has not been blessed by Apple, browsers such as Chrome may think it's a "suspicious" file and block the download, in which case you need to explicitly opt in to downloading the untrusted file.

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  <img alt="screenshot of a chrome prompt showing a blocked download" src="https://github.com/mk6i/open-oscar-server/assets/2894330/90af40bd-262d-4e0f-a769-06943c7acd18">
</p>

While the binaries are 100% safe, you can avoid the security concern by building the application yourself. We do not provide signed binaries because of the undue cost and complexity.

Once downloaded, extract the .zip archive, which contains the application and a configuration file settings.env.

1. Open Terminal

Open a terminal and navigate to the extracted directory. This terminal will be used for the remaining steps.

   cd ~/Downloads/open_oscar_server.0.21.0.macos.intel_x86_64/

1. Remove Quarantine

macOS will quarantine the Open OSCAR Server binary because it has not been blessed by Apple. To remove the quarantine flag from the binary, run following command in the same terminal,

   sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./open_oscar_server

While the binaries are 100% safe, you can avoid the security concern by building the application yourself. We do not provide signed binaries because of the undue cost and complexity.

1. Configure Server Address

Set the default listener in OSCAR_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS_PLAIN in settings.env to a hostname and port that the AIM clients can connect to. If you are running the AIM client and server on the same machine, you don't need to change the default value.

The format is [NAME]://[HOSTNAME]:[PORT] where:

- `LOCAL` is the listener name (can be any name you choose, as long as it matches the `OSCAR_LISTENERS` config)
- `127.0.0.1` is the hostname clients connect to
- `5190` is the port number clients connect to

In order to connect AIM clients on your LAN (including VMs with bridged networking), you can find the appropriate IP address by running the following command in the terminal and use that IP instead of 127.0.0.1:

   osascript -e "IPv4 address of (system info)"

1. Start the Application

Run the following command to launch Open OSCAR Server:

   ./open_oscar_server

Open OSCAR Server will run in the terminal, ready to accept AIM client connections.

1. Test

To do a quick sanity check, start an AIM client, sign in to the server, and send yourself an instant message. Configure the AIM client to connect to the host and port from OSCAR_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS_PLAIN in settings.env. If using the default server setting, set host to 127.0.0.1 and port 5190.

See the Client Configuration Guide for more detail on setting up the AIM client.

By default, you can enter any screen name and password at the AIM sign-in screen to auto-create an account.

Account auto-creation is meant to be a convenience feature for local development. In a production deployment, you should set DISABLE_AUTH=false in settings.env to enforce account authentication. User accounts can be created via the Management API.

1. Additional Setup

For optional configuration steps that enhance your Open OSCAR Server experience, refer to the Additional Setup Guide.