Connections and preferences¶

What it does¶

Connections owns the host listener, named sessions, and Set Up a New Mac… portal. Preferences owns local application choices. The PowerPC Workshop separates Preferences and Connection; the host presents one settings module, and NOW-68K uses its main window.

Availability¶

All three applications expose the connection state they own. Preference depth differs; NOW-68K intentionally keeps its compact connection UI rather than the PowerPC preference model.

On the modern Mac¶

The host starts and stops the listener, names simultaneous guests, selects the active session, and reports duplicate-name or capacity refusals. Its setup sheet can generate preferences, assemble a fork-preserving setup disk from selected packages, and serve it temporarily over old-browser-compatible HTTP.

On the classic Mac¶

PowerPC carries separate Connection and Preferences pages. Its Connection page also compares the running application and active Extension with the exact artifacts published by the connected host. A different development build of the same release version is visible rather than collapsed into “current.” NOW-68K shows host, port, timeout, health, status, and retained console information in one window; it does not implement the update family.

Common tasks¶

The listener is plaintext and unauthenticated. Bind and advertise it only on a trusted LAN; never forward it through a router.

The setup portal is also plaintext. It exposes fixed download routes rather than uploads or directory listings; stop it when onboarding is complete.

Update artifacts are currently unsigned. The host recomputes their SHA-256 before advertising them and the guest verifies the transferred bytes, but that proves integrity against the host's manifest, not publisher authenticity. The local Connection page requires an explicit confirmation; console and remote command paths cannot bypass it.

Failure states¶

Revision mismatch, duplicate machine name, host unreachable, timeout, listener busy, capacity reached, and stale selected session retain exact reasons. Setup also retains missing-package, checksum-refusal, stale-selection, image build, archive-tool, and server-start failures instead of offering a partial disk as complete.

Updates retain no-offer, busy-transfer, identity mismatch, checksum mismatch, disk-space, Finder-identity, exchange, and relaunch/restart states rather than presenting a downloaded file as installed.

Current limitations¶

Guest display name is the current connection identity. Two live machines with the same name collide intentionally rather than being guessed apart.

Update signing and automatic update discovery are not implemented. The connected host is the only provider, and the flow is not yet metal-verified.

For developers¶

See connection sequence and network threat model.