How to Connect to Freenet6 from a Mac

Purpose

The gogoCLIENT allows you to use IPv6 even if your Internet connection is IPv4-only and behind NAT, which is the usual situation. But the pre-compiled versions are PC-Only, and the Mac instructions are several years out-of-date. This procedure works on a modern Mac.

I did this on two different Macs running Mt. Lion, OS X 10.8.5, on 1-27-14, and it worked. Then I tried it on Mavericks, OS X 10.9.1, and it also worked!

Install Xcode

Mac OS X lacks developer tools like gcc and make. To add them, do this:

Open the App Store.

Search for Xcode and add it. It's free.

Open your Applications folder and you can see the progress of the download and installation.

When Xcode is done installing, in your Applications folder, double-click Xcode.

Agree to the agreement and enter your password when you are prompted to.

Wait while it installs components.

A splash screen appears, inviting you to use a GUI, as shown below.

Installing Command-Line Tools

If you are using Mavericks, the command-line tools are automatically installed with Xcode, so skip ahead to the next section.

If you are using Mt. Lion, follow the steps below.

From the menu bar, click Xcode, Preferences.

Click the Downloads tab.

On the right side, click the grayed-out down-arrow icon in the "Command Line Tools" row, as shown below.

Enter your password when prompted to. A progress bar appears. Wait while software downloads and installs.

Get the Tuntap Driver

Go to

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tuntaposx/?source=dlp

Click the green "Download tuntap_20111101.tar.gz" button.

Open your Downloads folder in Finder and double-click the tuntap_20111101.tar.gz file.

A folder appears, named tuntap_20111101, as show below:

Double-click the tuntap_20111101 folder.

Double-click tuntap_20111101.pkg.

If you see a message saying "tuntap_20111101.pkg can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer", do this:

An "Install TunTap Installer Package" window opens, as shown below.

Click through the installer as usual.

Get the gogoCLIENT

Go to

http://www.gogo6.com/profile/gogoCLIENT

If you have an account, sign in. If you don't, click "Sign Up" to get one.

Click the last button, labelled "gogoCLIENT 1.2 Source Code (Linux/Unix/ MacOS/BSD)," as shown below:

On the next page, click the Donate button.

On the next page, in the "Name a fair price", type in 0.

Enter an email address and click the Get button.

In the next page, click the Download button.

You get a file named gogoc-1_2-RELEASE.tar.gz in your Downloads folder.

Install the Client Software

In a Terminal window, execute these commands:
cd ~/Downloads

tar -zxf gogoc-1_2-RELEASE.tar.gz

cd gogoc-1_2-RELEASE/gogoc-tsp

nano src/lib/md5c.c

In Nano, scroll down to find this line:
#include "md5.h"
and put the cursor above it, as shown below:

Type in this this line:

#include <stdint.h>
Your screen should now look like this:

Press Ctrl+X, Y, Enter to save the file.

In the Terminal window, execute these commands:

chmod +x template/*.sh

make target=darwin clean

make target=darwin all

sudo mkdir /usr/local

sudo mkdir /usr/local/gw6c

sudo make target=darwin installdir=/usr/local/gw6c install

Connecting Anonymously

In a Terminal window, execute this command:
sudo /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc -n -f /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc.conf
If it works, you will see "Your IPv6 address," as shown below. If you do not, see the "Troubleshooting" section below.

LEAVE THIS WINDOW OPEN -- if you close this Terminal window, you will lose your IPv6 connection.

Testing the Connection

Open a new Terminal window and execute this command:
ping6 google.com
If it works, you will see replies as shown below. Press Ctrl+C to stop the pings.

Troubleshooting

Failed to contact TSP listener

If you get errors as shown in the image below, saying "Failed to contact TSP listener, that is unfortunately very common, because the servers really are down. The solution is to try the other servers until you find one that is up.

Sometimes, anonymous.freenet6.net is down but anon-montreal.freenet6.net is up, so the following adustment works:

If the client is still trying to connect, cancel it with Ctrl+C.

In a Terminal window, execute this command:

sudo nano /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc.conf
Scroll down to find the line starting with "server=", as shown below:

Change the server from anonymous.freenet6.net to anon-montreal.freenet6.net

Press Ctrl+X, Y, Enter to save the file.

Try reconnecting as before, with this command:

sudo /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc -n -f /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc.conf
If that fails, use PING to find a server that is up. Here are the servers I know of:

Anonymous Freenet6 Servers

  • anonymous.freenet6.net
  • anon-montreal.freenet6.net
  • anon-sydney.freenet6.net
  • anon-taipei.freenet6.net
  • anon-amsterdam.freenet6.net

Authenticated Freenet6 Servers

To use these, you need to make a freenet6 account here:

http://www.gogo6.com/freenet6/account

Then you need to enter your username and password into the /usr/local/gw6c/bin/gogoc.conf file.

  • authenticated.freenet6.net
  • montreal.freenet6.net
  • sydney.freenet6.net
  • taipei.freenet6.net
  • amsterdam.freenet6.net

Failed to open tun device

If you see errors like this: "Failed to open tun device: /dev/tun0", that means you didn't install the tuntap driver successfully. I found that it was essential to use the GUI installation, not the command-line.

Sources

How to install and configure the Hexago Gateway6 Client on Mac OS X

Where can I find "make" program for Mac OS X Lion?

Anyone get this working on OS X?


Last modified: 2:40 pm 1-27-14