I am running PeerGuardian for Mac OS X Version 1.6b2 (721) on OS X 10.6
For some time I have been getting an error upon opening PG: "Version Data
Error" "The version data file appears corrupt".
This seems to be because the update server does not work anymore. If you
disable automatic updates, you won't get this error any longer.
I have seen users having problems with the PG versions on newer versions of OS
X. I have not tried the newer PG version 1.7b1 which can be downloaded here.
What is more, I have found a 1.7b2 version online.
I am wondering whether this one was originally offered as a download be
PhoenixLabs, and why it is not available here.
Obviously, I would like to keep using PG, also when updating my OS, or find an
alternative. Now, 1.6b2 works fine for me (with the usual bugs that can be
handled).
We need a list on which PG version works on which OS version.
Also, there has been valuable discussion on the PhoenixLabs OS X forum with
helpful explanations on how to handle PG. What happened to the PhoenixLabs
site? Can someone migrate the forum posts?
First off, currently only the Linux branch here is active. I have no contact
to the old OS X developer (QNation), nore am I really familliar with PGOSX,
or OS X at all.
For some time I have been getting an error upon opening PG: "Version Data
Error" "The version data file appears corrupt". This seems to be because the
update server does not work anymore. If you disable automatic updates, you
won't get this error any longer.
Which list URLs are used in this version?
Generally you should NOT run without list updates. I'd recommend to use the
URLs from iblocklist.com. There you'll find nearly all currently available
blocklists.
What is more, I have found a 1.7b2 version online.
I am wondering whether this one was originally offered as a download be
PhoenixLabs, and why it is not available here.
Where did you find 1.7b2? If it is a version from QNation, I will add it to
the download section here.
QNation recently only made beta releases and just announced them on
phoenixlabs, while publishing them on his homepage http://www.bergstrand.org. I just uploaded these file releases here
recently.
Obviously, I would like to keep using PG, also when updating my OS, or find
an alternative. Now, 1.6b2 works fine for me (with the usual bugs that can be
handled). We need a list on which PG version works on which OS version.
I'd recommend/try to use 1.7b1 (or b2) with the iblocklist list URLs. I'd
guess this works for all OS X versions (older PGOSX versions had problems
with newer OS X).
If not please tell the results and we might add this list to the wiki (see
below).
Also, there has been valuable discussion on the PhoenixLabs OS X forum with
helpful explanations on how to handle PG. What happened to the PhoenixLabs
site? Can someone migrate the forum posts?
You can use archive.org to browse the old phoenixlabs.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20110526212540/http://phoenixlabs.org/
We just lost (contact to) the old server maintainer and sometime
phoenixlabs.org went down. I don't have access to the original data from
phoenixlabs, just archive.org.
I'm working (as real life time permits), on building up the site here at
sourceforge. I'll add a wiki, where PGOSX content might be placed (if you
want to offer content I'll gladly help to get it there). I don't plan to
migrate the old forums, but would love to see someone doing this.
Last time I had the impression that the peerblock project faces the same
problems like ours. I'll happily support any kind of collaboration.
Basically, since PG is an interface to ipfw, would it be possible to use
ipfw directly, and configure it so that it would do the same job PG does?
No idea.
But I guess the better way is to start with the last published source
(1.5.1) (or even better try to get newer source from QNation), and fix the
issues there (if there are really any), instead of starting from scratch.
I guess ipfw is similar to netfilter/iptables in Linux. There you also could
write probably a script of less than 100 lines to get the blocklists and add
their ipranges to iptables, but you'd miss some speed improvements (not
totally sure of that, because as I understand it, netfilter/iptables received
some improvement in this area) and additional features.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
—Updates: I was not referring to list updates, but to the update function of
the software itself. My impression is that the mentioned error message does
not affect list functionality, and I just wanted to document this issue.
—Old PL site: Thank you for the archive link. However, the OS X Version thread
is not accessible. I mentioned this because often users are irritated by PGs
mildly buggy behaviour, and there were helpful explanations. However, I will
try the newer version, maybe those issues are gone anyway.
—ipfw: Thanks for your impression. I do not know much about software
development of performance. I have basic insight into programming, but I am
not a coder at all. I might be good for thinking some things through, but I
could not seriously dive into the PG code, I think. (But then, you never
know.) That's the reason why I was thinking along the lines of a shell
script.
To expand on this point, however, I have seen that PfSense
(http://www.pfsense.org/) is based on FreeBSD
(which OS X is based on), and it makes use of PF (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/PF_(firewall)), which happens to be included in the new OS X version Mountain Lion.
Has not fakhir been working on the more recent PG for OS X versions as well? I
just would love to see some more development with this unique piece of
software. I'll contribute if anything happens here (and be it just
documentation).
I will have to see for myself whether PG still works in OS X 10.8 Mountain
Lion (there have been mixed reports) as soon as I update (which can still
be a while). Other's impressions on which PG version works with which OS X
version are welcome, of course.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I finally uploaded the mentioned 1.7b2 to a staged folder (to be released in
3 days). Thanks for your input.
I still have no contct to the OSX developer. Said version is from August 2011.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
For downloading blocklists pglcmd (from PeerGuardian Linux) may be working. pglcmd is a (nearly) POSIX compliant shell script, I don't know how difficult it is to split out the blocklist part for OS X.
Of course merging icefloor and pgl (there replacing pgld on OS X) would be awesome.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I am running PeerGuardian for Mac OS X Version 1.6b2 (721) on OS X 10.6
For some time I have been getting an error upon opening PG: "Version Data
Error" "The version data file appears corrupt".
This seems to be because the update server does not work anymore. If you
disable automatic updates, you won't get this error any longer.
I have seen users having problems with the PG versions on newer versions of OS
X. I have not tried the newer PG version 1.7b1 which can be downloaded here.
What is more, I have found a 1.7b2 version online.
I am wondering whether this one was originally offered as a download be
PhoenixLabs, and why it is not available here.
Obviously, I would like to keep using PG, also when updating my OS, or find an
alternative. Now, 1.6b2 works fine for me (with the usual bugs that can be
handled).
We need a list on which PG version works on which OS version.
Also, there has been valuable discussion on the PhoenixLabs OS X forum with
helpful explanations on how to handle PG. What happened to the PhoenixLabs
site? Can someone migrate the forum posts?
Is there an alternative for OS X?
There is some effort at PeerBlock to do this in the future (their thread on
this is at http://code.google.com/p/peerblock/issues/detail?id=161), but if that happens
it won't be any time soon.
Basically, since PG is an interface to ipfw, would it be possible to use ipfw
directly, and configure it so that it would do the same job PG does?
First off, currently only the Linux branch here is active. I have no contact
to the old OS X developer (QNation), nore am I really familliar with PGOSX,
or OS X at all.
Which list URLs are used in this version?
Generally you should NOT run without list updates. I'd recommend to use the
URLs from iblocklist.com. There you'll find nearly all currently available
blocklists.
Where did you find 1.7b2? If it is a version from QNation, I will add it to
the download section here.
QNation recently only made beta releases and just announced them on
phoenixlabs, while publishing them on his homepage
http://www.bergstrand.org. I just uploaded these file releases here
recently.
I'd recommend/try to use 1.7b1 (or b2) with the iblocklist list URLs. I'd
guess this works for all OS X versions (older PGOSX versions had problems
with newer OS X).
If not please tell the results and we might add this list to the wiki (see
below).
You can use archive.org to browse the old phoenixlabs.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110526212540/http://phoenixlabs.org/
We just lost (contact to) the old server maintainer and sometime
phoenixlabs.org went down. I don't have access to the original data from
phoenixlabs, just archive.org.
I'm working (as real life time permits), on building up the site here at
sourceforge. I'll add a wiki, where PGOSX content might be placed (if you
want to offer content I'll gladly help to get it there). I don't plan to
migrate the old forums, but would love to see someone doing this.
Last time I had the impression that the peerblock project faces the same
problems like ours. I'll happily support any kind of collaboration.
No idea.
But I guess the better way is to start with the last published source
(1.5.1) (or even better try to get newer source from QNation), and fix the
issues there (if there are really any), instead of starting from scratch.
I guess ipfw is similar to netfilter/iptables in Linux. There you also could
write probably a script of less than 100 lines to get the blocklists and add
their ipranges to iptables, but you'd miss some speed improvements (not
totally sure of that, because as I understand it, netfilter/iptables received
some improvement in this area) and additional features.
Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
—Updates: I was not referring to list updates, but to the update function of
the software itself. My impression is that the mentioned error message does
not affect list functionality, and I just wanted to document this issue.
—Version 1.7b2: Can be found here:
http://bergstrand.org/brian/software/bin/PeerGuardian_170b2.zip
—Old PL site: Thank you for the archive link. However, the OS X Version thread
is not accessible. I mentioned this because often users are irritated by PGs
mildly buggy behaviour, and there were helpful explanations. However, I will
try the newer version, maybe those issues are gone anyway.
—ipfw: Thanks for your impression. I do not know much about software
development of performance. I have basic insight into programming, but I am
not a coder at all. I might be good for thinking some things through, but I
could not seriously dive into the PG code, I think. (But then, you never
know.) That's the reason why I was thinking along the lines of a shell
script.
To expand on this point, however, I have seen that PfSense
(http://www.pfsense.org/) is based on FreeBSD
(which OS X is based on), and it makes use of PF (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/PF_(firewall)), which happens to be included in the new OS X version Mountain Lion.
Has not fakhir been working on the more recent PG for OS X versions as well? I
just would love to see some more development with this unique piece of
software. I'll contribute if anything happens here (and be it just
documentation).
I will have to see for myself whether PG still works in OS X 10.8 Mountain
Lion (there have been mixed reports) as soon as I update (which can still
be a while). Other's impressions on which PG version works with which OS X
version are welcome, of course.
I finally uploaded the mentioned 1.7b2 to a staged folder (to be released in
3 days). Thanks for your input.
I still have no contct to the OSX developer. Said version is from August 2011.
This is what we have been looking for: www.hanynet.com/icefloor/
Icefloor is a current alternative to the outdated (yet still functionable) PeerGuardian if you are using OS X.
It is a frontend for the pf firewall/packet filter, which is meant replace ipfw (which PG uses) in newer versions of OS X.
The programmer of Icefloor is working on a new software that also supports OS x 10.10.
However, in Icefloor, ip lists can only be loaded from files, not via the web.
Thanks.
For downloading blocklists pglcmd (from PeerGuardian Linux) may be working. pglcmd is a (nearly) POSIX compliant shell script, I don't know how difficult it is to split out the blocklist part for OS X.
Of course merging icefloor and pgl (there replacing pgld on OS X) would be awesome.