Custom Anisette Server

note

Using any SideStore version after 0.4.0 is unlikely to lock your account as this is when support for v3 anisette servers was added.

With this, it is highly recommended to use a v3 server for normal use of SideStore, if your version supports it.

Anisette data is information used in the app signing process that needs to be generated each time you install or refresh apps. SideStore gets this information from a server that spoofs a Mac and sends you back the anisette data. No account info is sent to the server ever in this process.

When many people use the same Anisette server (specifically a v1 server), it trips Apple's security, and locks the accounts that were using that machine. This is why we recommend using a separate burner Apple ID instead of your main one.

Our team has worked on better approaches to avoid locked accounts (in the form of anisette-v3). However, if you are using an older version of SideStore, hosting your own anisette server is a great way to avoid locked accounts. This is made incredibly easy thanks to our current server being open source and made for docker environments. This means we can deploy a server with nothing more than the GitHub link.

Deploy on Render

Render is a service for easily creating servers. It supports loading server sources from GitHub. The free tier is quite limited in terms of resources, but the server can run comfortably on it without issue.

Due to too many people using the same GitHub URL, you will have to fork the Git repository yourself.

1. Register for a GitHub account, if you do not already have one.
2. Open the Git repository.
3. Click "Fork" in the top right, and fork the repository to your account.
4. Once the forked repository is created, click the green "Code" dropdown in the top right, and copy the .git URL.

• Save this for later.

Once this is done, the Render server can be made.

1. Register for an account.

2. Create a New Web Service.

3. Scroll down to Public Git repository and enter the URL you copied earlier.

4. Click "Continue" and fill in the form:

   • Name - Does not matter
   • Region - Closest to you
   • Branch - main (default)
   • Root Directory - blank (default)
   • Environment - Docker (default)
   • Instance Type - Free

5. Wait for the server to build. You will see the following when it's done:

Machine requires provisioning... done !
Your service is live 🎉

If the build fails for any reason, click Manual Deploy, then Deploy latest commit.

6. Find the link for your new server at the top of the page:

https://[your-server-name].onrender.com

Creating a custom anisette server list

Since the release of version 0.5.8, SideStore uses an anisette server list system so officially endorsed anisette servers can be added more easily. This means that there is a little bit of extra work to be done in order to use your own server without requesting to have yours added to the official list.

If you want to keep the option of using included servers, follow the steps below:

1. Go here to obtain the current server list.
2. Head to a file hosting service of your choice to host the file on the internet. We recommend using GitHub Pages to do so as it's easier to edit in future, and will be the service used as example for this guide. If you have your own way of hosting, adapt the following to your setup.
3. If you have a Github Pages site set up already, skip to the sixth sub-step. Otherwise, do the following:

• Create a new GitHub repository via either the plus (+) button on the top right on desktop, profile icon > Create new on mobile, or this page.
• Set the name to be [your GitHub username].github.io, check 'Initialize this repository with a README', and set the remaining settings to how you wish.
• Once created, go to the Settings tab and navigate to the Pages section under Code and automation.
• Set Build and deployment under Source to 'Deploy from branch'
• If not auto-selected, set Branch to 'main'
• Return to the code tab and hit 'Add files', then 'Upload files', then select the 'servers.json' file you downloaded earlier.
• Once uploaded, click on the file and hit the Edit button.
• Scroll down to the last server on the list and add a comma after the last server's closing curly bracket ('}'), then add your own server afterwards in the following format:

{
    "name": "[something identifiable like a username]",   //doesn't really matter unless you're sharing this server list with someone else
    "address": "[your server's url]"
}

• Commit the changes, then head to https://[your GitHub username].github.io/[where you placed the file]/servers.json. If the file loads, you are ready to move on to the next section. Otherwise, you may need to wait up to 10 mins for your site to be properly set up for use before you try again.

If you want to only use your own server, follow the steps above, but instead of getting the official server.json, create your own using this formatting;

{
    "servers": [
        {
            "name": "[as above]",
            "address": "[also as above]"
        }
    ]
}

and continue as normal.

Use your server with SideStore

To use your newly created server list in the SideStore app, do the following:

1. Open the Settings tab in SideStore.
2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on 'Anisette Servers'.
3. Tap on the list URL and replace it with the URL of your server list.
4. Hit 'Refresh Servers', and select your own server from the updated list.

Done!

SideStore will now use your new custom anisette server.

Links:

All Official Anisette Servers Uptime

Our Official Anisette Server's Uptime