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Abandonware Licensing Help

aplmak

Well-known member
Hey gang... I have posted this once before but I am going to post it again in hopes someone out there could possibly help me. This software which can be downloaded at https://www.macintoshrepository.org/42882-ipt was given for use to those who purchased the Apple Network Server 500 or 700. Apple did not have a solution of their own to do file sharing through AppleTalk. So this company IPT which is completely defunct and abandoned usually issued registration keys. Of course none of the phone numbers, web sites, anything to do with IPT exists anymore. And of course who would bother with this old software since I'm sure there probably isn't one person on this earth using it. So Apple distributed this with the server as a "try it and buy it" option from IPT (Information Presentation Technologies Inc.)

I am trying to find someone who might be able to break the code they used or to create a key utility that would generate codes based off the "Machine ID". Apparently it uses the "Machine ID" of the server for the coding of the key. I am sure there is a master or back door code that doesn't really require a "Machine ID" as programmers sometimes include this for their own benefit.. but I'm not 100% sure.

So what I am attaching is pics of the once valid license for my server with my "Machine ID" which is: 0026157F4c00 and if you look at the first photo that license which has expired worked for my machine ID. The second picture is a generic try it code that allows only 1 user to use AppleTalk file sharing services. I am hoping and praying someone might be able to figure this out for me and for the community for anyone else who has an ANS and wants to use it. I know there are a few people on the board that have ANS's that would probably like to be able to use this software.

I am hoping with my machine id of: 0026157F4c00 and these photos of the formatting they use to generate key codes someone might be able to figure out the algorithm to this madness.

Again the CD Image can be downloaded at: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/42882-ipt where I uploaded it a while back. There are some AIX/UNIX files on it and some regular mac docs I think on it as well. But this is the installer CD for AIX and the software.

Much appreciated in advance to anyone who can help.
 

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Nixontheknight

Well-known member
Hey gang... I have posted this once before but I am going to post it again in hopes someone out there could possibly help me. This software which can be downloaded at https://www.macintoshrepository.org/42882-ipt was given for use to those who purchased the Apple Network Server 500 or 700. Apple did not have a solution of their own to do file sharing through AppleTalk. So this company IPT which is completely defunct and abandoned usually issued registration keys. Of course none of the phone numbers, web sites, anything to do with IPT exists anymore. And of course who would bother with this old software since I'm sure there probably isn't one person on this earth using it. So Apple distributed this with the server as a "try it and buy it" option from IPT (Information Presentation Technologies Inc.)

I am trying to find someone who might be able to break the code they used or to create a key utility that would generate codes based off the "Machine ID". Apparently it uses the "Machine ID" of the server for the coding of the key. I am sure there is a master or back door code that doesn't really require a "Machine ID" as programmers sometimes include this for their own benefit.. but I'm not 100% sure.

So what I am attaching is pics of the once valid license for my server with my "Machine ID" which is: 0026157F4c00 and if you look at the first photo that license which has expired worked for my machine ID. The second picture is a generic try it code that allows only 1 user to use AppleTalk file sharing services. I am hoping and praying someone might be able to figure this out for me and for the community for anyone else who has an ANS and wants to use it. I know there are a few people on the board that have ANS's that would probably like to be able to use this software.

I am hoping with my machine id of: 0026157F4c00 and these photos of the formatting they use to generate key codes someone might be able to figure out the algorithm to this madness.

Again the CD Image can be downloaded at: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/42882-ipt where I uploaded it a while back. There are some AIX/UNIX files on it and some regular mac docs I think on it as well. But this is the installer CD for AIX and the software.

Much appreciated in advance to anyone who can help.
would be cool if someone could find a way to do this with ipnetrouter
 
Unix software is often licensed based on the MAC address of (one of the) network adapters, which is a six byte value, so your machine ID 0026157F4c00 might just be a MAC address.

You should be able to check using the following AIX shell command:

netstat -v | egrep 'ETHER|Hard'

In simple cases, if you have a valid license for a different machine, this can often be worked around by either changing the MAC address of the network adapter (see https://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=750588) or by injecting a shared library to fake the address. The second option, using the LDR_PRELOAD environment variable, similar to LD_PRELOAD on Linux is not available on AIX4, however. I'm not sure if the approach mentioned in the last answer of that StackOverflow thread, simply creating a shared library with the replaced functions and placing it in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, really works.

But it seems the license is also time limited. Faking another system time might also work, but I'm not sure this is a good idea for a network file service.

Finally, if this software is only implementing an Appletalk file server, wouldn't netatalk be an (open source) alternative?

Beware, I haven't used AIX in years and only own an old Motorola MTX+ AIX machine (though I would love to own a Network Server), so I might have mixed up some information...
 

aplmak

Well-known member
Got it message received. There has also been stuff I have seen about "SAMBA" and I might have a copy somewhere that could give me the ability to use AppleTalk Services. I am limited in these areas but I get the gist of what you are saying. Attached here is an exact copy of the registration form asking for the user to issue this command for the "Machine ID" which you did indeed pointed out it may appear to be a MAC address. Any ideas on what the command does that they ask here? Does it grab the MAC address?

I do know of another area where upon bootup it has a specific id number and I would have to get that. I just wanted to quickly respond to you as you are really helping me out with this. I am basically trying to set it up to host some standard apple file sharing as they would have back in the day whether it be on a LocalTalk or Ethernet connector. I realize it is much antiquated at this point but I am again just trying to emulate the setup that possibly would have been at that time.
 

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aplmak

Well-known member
Unix software is often licensed based on the MAC address of (one of the) network adapters, which is a six byte value, so your machine ID 0026157F4c00 might just be a MAC address.

You should be able to check using the following AIX shell command:

netstat -v | egrep 'ETHER|Hard'

In simple cases, if you have a valid license for a different machine, this can often be worked around by either changing the MAC address of the network adapter (see https://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=750588) or by injecting a shared library to fake the address. The second option, using the LDR_PRELOAD environment variable, similar to LD_PRELOAD on Linux is not available on AIX4, however. I'm not sure if the approach mentioned in the last answer of that StackOverflow thread, simply creating a shared library with the replaced functions and placing it in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, really works.

But it seems the license is also time limited. Faking another system time might also work, but I'm not sure this is a good idea for a network file service.

Finally, if this software is only implementing an Appletalk file server, wouldn't netatalk be an (open source) alternative?

Beware, I haven't used AIX in years and only own an old Motorola MTX+ AIX machine (though I would love to own a Network Server), so I might have mixed up some information...
Running the command you referenced returns 00:05:02:64:a8:fe (standard max address)

There is another thread on this so my apologies we have two.. here it is and may be helpful

 

aplmak

Well-known member
If I can figure out how to change the hostid I think I can get one of the licenses working.. but how to do this.. AIX v4.1.5
 
If I can figure out how to change the hostid I think I can get one of the licenses working.. but how to do this.. AIX v4.1.5
I need to get an AIX machine running in order to test some things, maybe qemu will help (or my old Motorola MTX+ is still working after 20+ years). I'll try to find out more next weekend...
 

aplmak

Well-known member
That would be awesome!!! Thanks for any help!!! This would be a great solution to all the other ANS owners out there!!
 

aplmak

Well-known member
If we could modify the server to report this Host Id: (as seen in this pic) we could get the Unlimited with no expiration date and utilize this key from this photo perhaps.... just throwing it out there... perhaps it might be helpful
 

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aplmak

Well-known member
Another bit of info that might be helpful. This is what the installer looks like right before it is finished with the Host ID information. It says "hostid 0x26157f4c"
 

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aladds

Well-known member
This might help: http://www.linuxmisc.com/11-unix-aix/46e505bfd357dfa5.htm

Specifically:
In the past, I've had to deal with licenses for software whos manufacturer
went out of business. In both cases, the license manager issued a unamex(2)
system call (not the uname command!) to obtain the serial number. So, the
challenge is to make unamex() return the information we want.
unamex() is located in libc.a[shr.o]. What I did was to create a local copy of
libc.a, with a slightly altered shr.o in it. Then set LIBPATH to point to
your local copy of libc.a first (before /usr/lib/libc.a) and start the
license server.
Since comp.unix.aix is not a full-disclosure list, I'm not going to publish
the exact method to "slightly alter shr.o", although anyone with some knowledge
of the AIX linker should be able to figure it out. You can try to convince me
you have no way to obtain a new license and then I would be willing to help
you.
 
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