4.0 KiB
iMessage bridge setup (macOS without SIP)
Please note that everything in these docs are meant for server admins who want to self-host the bridge. If you're just looking to use the bridges, check out Beeper, which provides fully managed instances of all of these bridges.
Requirements
Compilation (optional)
- Go 1.16+ (download & installation instructions at https://golang.org/dl/)
- libolm3 with dev headers (
brew install libolm
) - Xcode 12.4+ if you want to build Barcelona yourself
Runtime
- A computer running a reasonably new version of macOS, with SIP and AMFI disabled (see instructions below).
- A Matrix homeserver that supports application services (e.g. Synapse). You need access to register an appservice, which usually involves editing the homeserver config file.
- A websocket proxy to receive appservice transactions.
Installation
This form of the bridge consists of two components: Barcelona for connecting to iMessage and mautrix-imessage for connecting to Matrix. mautrix-imessage will run Barcelona as a subprocess and they communicate over stdio.
You may either compile the bridge and Barcelona manually, or download prebuilt executables from the mau.dev and jank.crap.studio CIs.
Because Barcelona hooks into Apple's private APIs, you must disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) and AMFI (Apple Mobile File Integrity) on the Mac for it to work. Disabling SIP will make your Mac less secure, so you should only do it on a Mac that you won't use for anything else.
Compiling manually
- Clone the repo with
git clone https://github.com/mautrix/imessage.git
. - Enter the directory (
cd mautrix-imessage
). - Run
./build.sh
to fetch Go dependencies and compile (build.sh
will simply callgo build
with some additional flags). - Refer to the Barcelona build instructions for building Barcelona.
Downloading prebuilt executables
- Go to https://mau.dev/mautrix/imessage/pipelines?scope=branches&page=1
- Find the entry for the
master
branch and click the download button on the right-hand side in the list and choose "build universal". - Extract the downloaded zip file into a new directory.
- Download
darwin-barcelona-mautrix
from https://jank.crap.studio/job/barcelona/job/mautrix/.
Disabling SIP and AMFI
Disabling SIP and AMFI will make your Mac significantly less secure.
- Boot into recovery mode (hold Command+R while booting) and open a terminal
- Run
csrutil disable
to disable SIP - Run
nvram boot-args="amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1"
to disable AMFI
If you are running macOS in a VM (e.g. through OSX-KVM) you may need to
disable AMFI with a boot option. Assuming you are using OSX-KVM and OpenCore,
open the config.plist
(in EFI/OC/config.plist
) and change the key
boot-args
to add amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1
example:
<key>boot-args</key>
<string>-v keepsyms=1 tlbto_us=0 vti=9 amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1</string>
You can also refer to Apple's official documentation on disabling SIP.
Configuring and running
- Follow steps 1-6 from the normal macOS setup
- Install Barcelona's com.apple.security.xpc.plist to
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.xpc.plist
- In the
imessage
section of the config, changeplatform
tomac-nosip
and setimessage_rest_path
to the path to thedarwin-barcelona-mautrix
executable you downloaded or compiled. - Run the bridge with
./mautrix-imessage
.