========================= retroTunnel by C.S. Allin copyright 2025 Visit my cool website at: http://crunchyslug.com or http://tilde.club/~cslug (Whichever works at any given moment) retroTunnel is released under the C.S. Allin retroTunnel License 1.0. See license.txt for more details. ======================== Q. What is retroTunnel? retroTunnel is a small suite of PHP scripts that allow you to easily share files between a retro computer and a modern computer via an ethernet connection. As a bonus, it also includes a proxy for browsing HTTPS sites on retro computers(with some caveats). The advantage of using retroTunnel is that you need no special software on the retro computer. No SMB shares, no FTP servers, no wrestling with antiquated networking programs. All you need is ethernet and a web browser. Q. Okay, but what are the requirements for running retroTunnel on the modern computer's end? PHP and a web server, preferably Apache. Many Linux distros and macOS already ship with Apache and PHP. Installing them on Windows isn't tough and you can find a tutorial on PHP's official website: https://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php Q. How do I configure Apache? Locate the Apache configuration file httpd.conf and open it. Change the following lines: #LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so #LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so (See note! - C.S. Allin) # # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files. # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords: # AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit # AllowOverride None To: LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache2/mod_rewrite.so LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so # # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files. # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords: # AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit # AllowOverride All Now find DocumentRoot and WRITE DOWN WHAT IT SAYS. This is the directory where Apache serves documents from. This is important. It's where retroTunnel needs to go. Start or restart Apache. If you're using macOS and you find it can't restart, open Activity Monitor, find the process httpd with the user "root", and force it to quit. Then try restarting Apache again. Note: The line "LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so" will probably be a little different on your computer because you'll undoubtedly be running a newer version of PHP than PHP 5. Also, the paths will likely look different depending on your platform. Q. How do I configure PHP? Locate the PHP configuration file php.ini and open it. If it doesn't exist then look for php.ini.default, copy it, and rename it php.ini. Set the following values: file_uploads = On upload_max_filesize = 1000M max_execution_time = 3600 max_input_time = 3600 memory_limit = 1128M These settings give the retro computer 1 hour(3600 seconds) to upload a file to the modern computer, and 1 hour to download a file through the HTTPS proxy before timing out. It also caps upload sizes(from the retro computer to the modern computer) at 1 gigabyte. When you download a file using the HTTPS proxy on the retro computer, the modern computer loads the entire file into memory. The memory limit is raised to allow the downloading of 1 gigabyte files through the proxy. When your retro computer downloads files from your modern computer normally, that is without the HTTPS proxy, no download limits whatsoever apply. Q. But where are httpd.conf and php.ini!? It varies by platform. On older versions of macOS they should be in /etc/apache2 and and /etc, respectively. They might be in the same places under newer macOS versions too, but I can't vouch for it. I can't vouch for Windows or Linux, either. Q. Alright, now how do I install and setup retroTunnel? Extract rt.zip to your DocumentRoot directory. If you're using macOS or Linux(or possibly Windows? Does it use permissions yet?), then your web server, presumably Apache, needs write permissions for the directories whatever_your_DocumentRoot_is/rt and whatever_your_DocumentRoot_is/rt/InboxRT. Make shortcuts to DocumentRoot/rt/InboxRT and DocumentRoot/rt/OutboxRT. Put them somewhere extremely accessible. When you want to transfer files to your retro computer, you put them in OutboxRT. When you upload files from your retro computer to your modern computer, they'll appear in InboxRT. At this point you probably have to enable internet sharing. Next, connect your modern computer to your retro computer via ethernet. Finally, on your retro computer, create a TCP/IP to Ethernet bridge if the operating system doesn't automatically do it for you. Open a web browser, type [your modern computer's IP address]/rt in the address bar. Hit enter. There you go. If your retro computer is running Windows then you can use ipconfig to obtain your modern computer's IP adress. Just open an MS-DOS box, type ipconfig, and the Default Gateway will list your modern computer's IP. Ignore anything that says 0.0.0.0. I'm assuming you have a direct ethernet connection between your retro computer and your modern computer. I've never used a router in my life so I can't tell you what extra steps, if any, are needed to make retroTunnel function over one. I wish retroTunnel didn't require so much setup but I think the results are worth the trouble. It doesn't matter what operating system your modern computer is running as long as it has PHP and a web server, and your retro computer can run Windows, classic Mac OS, beOS, Amiga, or anything else as long as it has a web browser and ethernet. Once everything's configured, it just works. Q. So what's the deal with the HTTPS proxy? The HTTPS proxy is designed to let you browse retro websites that became inaccessible on retro devices because they switched from HTTP to HTTPs at some point. It isn't meant to do anything fancy. It won't let you post on forums or do online banking from Windows 95(not that you should). Some features and websites just won't work. I threw this proxy together in about 7 days and I barely have experience in PHP so it's provided on a very as-is basis. But it does the job it was intended to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Even though it's basic, it does have built in Wiby search and Google search features, and it functions just well enough with archive.org that you can download files from it. I also pretty thoroughly commented the PHP script to make it easy to work with even though it's very messy, if you're crazy enough to try improving it. If you're wondering why the Google logo is changed to "Roogle", that's because the Google logo breaks for some reason so I replaced it for the sake of aesthetics. Roogle is just a combination of retroTunnel + Google. You can of course change this if you want. In fact, you're encouraged to explore retroTunnel's files and customize it. Q. I think retroTunnel is cool and worth money. Can I pay you somehow? Yes! You can subscribe to me on Patreon or send something on Ko-fi if you think my work is worth something. Just go to my website and visit the Donate link.