Feature release

Amiga Imager v0.99.8.3

Amiga Imager 0.99.8.3 makes a freshly built image reachable from your Mac: amiagent is now a selectable package with optional auto-start, and PiStorm images bring the network up at boot – without hanging a machine that has no cable plugged in.

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  • NEW: amiagent remote access, set up at build time
  • NEW: PiStorm network comes up at boot
  • Boots normally with no cable plugged in
  • Bundles amipkg 0.7.9
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Feature release - macOS 14+, Apple Silicon and Intel. Build: 260809.

Remote access with amiagent

amiagent – the Amiga half of the amimcp project – is now a selectable package, and the new Remote Access pane in Settings can configure it to start at boot with an access token already in place. Build the image, boot the Amiga, and it is reachable from your Mac – including from Claude – without touching the Amiga once. Verified end to end on real hardware.

Security got most of the design attention, because amiagent runs any command it is sent over an unencrypted link. Auto-start is off unless you turn it on, and with auto-start on but no token set, no boot line is written at all – shipping the one configuration the tool’s own author warns against was not going to happen silently. Tokens containing shell metacharacters are refused rather than spliced into an AmigaDOS command line, and the Settings pane says plainly that the token sits in clear text in S:User-Startup and that the port should not be forwarded to the internet.

PiStorm: network at boot

PiStorm images with Roadshow networking used to boot with the network down – the startup wrote the caller for S:Network-Startup but never the file itself, so the machine came up offline until you connected by hand. The file is now written, raising exactly the interface the build configured (Ethernet or WiFi), and a new “Bring the network up at boot” toggle in the PiStorm settings controls it. It is on by default; turning it off is a real choice (connect by hand via PiStorm Online) and is noted in the build log.

The part that took real hardware to get right: with no cable plugged in, bringing the interface up too early hangs the whole boot. The network start is therefore handed off to a background script that waits until Workbench is up before opening the interface – an unplugged machine boots normally and simply has no network, and a plugged-in one is online moments after the desktop appears. amiagent starts the same way, waiting for the TCP/IP stack instead of racing it.

Also

  • A downloaded, hash-verified package that ends up installing nothing now says so in the build log, with the likely cause – instead of passing without a word. That silence is what made amiagent’s first appearance look like a mystery.
  • Bundles amipkg 0.7.9.

Thanks to yelworc75, whose report of running the same network command from WBStartup – after Workbench exists – supplied the missing half of the no-cable fix.