Frequently Asked Questions

The platforms supported by Magma are:

• Linux
• Mac OS X

Magma is actively supported on all recent Macintosh computers; that is, for 64-bit Intel processors running OS X Leopard (10.5) or greater and for the M processors using Rosetta.

No. There are however ways to run Linux on a Windows machine which can be used to install Magma.

See Subscriptions.

See Simons Foundation subscriptions.

If your institution already holds a subscription for Magma, students taking relevant courses may be eligible for access to Magma. The task of distributing and supporting this Magma access will be handled by your institution; the Magma group simply cannot afford to provide support to individual students. See Subscriptions or contact us for further details.

Installation Instructions.

See Passfile Instructions.

See What issues can be caused by upgrading the operating system? below. After updating or if this doesn't apply to your machines, send us the new MAC address and we will send you an updated magmapassfile for use with your new hardware configuration.

See Passfile Instructions.

See Bug reporting.

When you visit a secure page on the Magma website (such as the downloads section or one of the secure order forms), a message may appear stating that "This Connection is Untrusted".

Firefox

Click on "I Understand the Risks", and then on "Add Exception...". A dialog box pops up.

Wait for a few moments while the certificate loads (or click "Get Certificate"). Ensure the reason that the certificate is not trusted is "Certificate is not trusted, because it hasn't been verified by a recognized authority", ensure that the checkbox "Permanently store this exception" is checked, and click "Confirm Security Exception".

Safari

A message may appear stating that "Safari can't verify the identity of the website". Click on "Continue" to proceed to the page.

Chrome

A message may appear stating that "The site's security certificate is not trusted!". Click on "Proceed anyway" to continue to the page.

Rarely, an operating system upgrade will change its security policy in a way that prevents magma from working as it should. Any known issues are listed here, together with workarounds.

macOS 15 (Sequoia)

Upgrading to Sequoia makes private MAC addresses and MAC address rotation the default behaviour on all networks. This may cause Magma to fail to run on such a machine, as the MAC addresses no longer match those that were used to generate the magmapassfile.

This issue can be fixed by upgrading to Magma V2.28-14 or later. If you are unable to do so immediately, then a workaround is to turn off this setting for your computer's network, as described in Apple's article about this feature.

OS X 10.11 (El Capitan)

Upgrading to El Capitan removes the link to magma from /usr/bin, with the result that typing magma into a terminal window will no longer find it. To fix this, create the file /etc/paths.d/Magma containing the single line /Applications/Magma.

After doing so, magma should once again be runnable by typing magma in a terminal window.