So this post is going to be part rant, part journal, part update.
First, ive decided with certainty that FreeBSD is the way to go at this point. Lots of hardening options, better and more precise control over what the OS and hardware are doing at any given moment, and better compatibility with more modern software. A number of challenges have been beating me in the head the last several days ive been researching this.
What ive learned may very well be useful to any other folks looking to throw an old Mac Pro tower or maybe even an OG Motorola mac up as a relay, as the hardware despite its age, is still very well suited to what a relay needs. Well, maybe the PPC and OG macs wont line up so well here but thats irrelevant. Anyway, firstly, Apple and most of the fanbois were full of shit when they said that the Firmware upgrade from 1.1 to 2.1 would fix the 32 bit EFI. Nope. It does not. It applies a sort of hacky patch that STILL loads a 32 bit kernel on boot, then straps into a 64 bit OS. Apple isnt very open about what and how they do what they do, but heres what ive learned so far. In short, the bootrom on those old macs are basically hardcoded to shit the bed if an x64 kernel tries to load. It wont even show up on the boot menu. So the obvious solution (at least to me) was to just replace the apple boot manager with grub, or something similar.
Nope.
Dont do that. During the boot process, the mac loads bootrom first, then looks for a 32bit EFI file bootstrap from there. But where is this firmware and bootloader stored? Dunno, couldnt figure it out. Still cant. Some sources say its loaded in Mac OS, others claim its loaded into a separate chip somewhere else on the board, and flashing it to include EFI64 bit, or UEFI is unrealistic, dangerous, and is probably impossible, and im reasonably certain attempting to do so will brick the board completely. Both answers cant be correct, yet both have merit and ground to stand on. Personally, (opinion this time, not fact) im about 85% sure the bootrom is stored on a chip somewhere on the board that isnt accessible to plebs like us, only to apple engineers, and can only be flashed or modified by an Apple signed Firmware update program, and im about 90% sure the bootloader just loads and points to an EFI file loaded into Mac OS, no Mac OS, no EFI file. Not completely sure either way, but i am sure that attempting to mod the bootrom will destroy the machine.
There was one solution from a very enterprising gentlemen from around 2011 or so that went the extra mile but writing a 32bit EFI for booting, but it isnt persistent. Upgrading to a more recent version of the OS, or doing updates has a high potential of rolling back the mods to the kernel, and on reboot will attempt to load a 64bit EFI or UEFI image, then promptly shits the bed. No good.
Ive stated before, and ill state again, im not a fan of hacky half assed work arounds. A native solution is always the best answer when possible. And its possible here. A hacky work around to boot FreeBSD (at least to me) defeats the purpose of using BSD in the first place. Its rock stable, and if its not, then its operator Error.
So i started looking hard into side loading a bootloader that will just run over top of the default apple bootloader without erasing or replacing it. One solution is to use a USB stick loaded with rEFIt or rEFInd. Hold option/alt on boot, select bootloader USB, from USB loaded bootloader, load OS of choice. Once OS is installed, 2 options to make it persistent. Install a copy of that USB sticks boot loader onto a boot only partition of the primary harddrive. Mac boots rEFIt partition first, then rEFIt bootstraps BSD. Maybe, ill give this option a solid 5/7.
The next, more stable option, is wipe all disks on the array. Start fresh. Install fresh copy of OS X of your choice, SL for me because i have a SL stick lying around for the bad days. Yes, you can use a usb stick to boot a DvD iso of OS X. Use unetbootin, and you can get a legitimate copy of OS X SL on MR (https://www.macintoshrepository.org/)
If your a Mac guy/gal, that resource is fucking amazing for vintage macs that predate App Store being the default for software distribution. They even have a copy of GTA vice city that was written for Mac OS (i fail to recall version atm, look it up if your curious, really cool)
Anyway. SL freshly installed, only installed on 1 drive, no hard or soft raid. Then try to install rEFInd, which has an mpkg GUI installer, theres also an option for CLI install if thats your preference. More info on this boot manager can be found at http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Technically, this version is deprecated, but it was the go to for the 1.1 and 2.1 MP, as well as many of the early EFI MBPs and Mac Mini. The newest version is rEFInd and can be found at The rEFInd Boot Manager
According to what ive learned so far, there are 2 ways to make this work. Install rEFInd/t onto a USB stick, and just leave it plugged in while booting. Non optimal.
The second, more stable option i eluded to above is to load this bootloader in to OS X SL, and install BSD onto a second disk in the array. But dual booting is also non optimal, but its as close a native solution ive cooked up yet.
My primary goal, was and still is ultimately to run BSD on bare metal. Virtualization may very be more than practical for most people in most situations. But im broke, and most of my shit is a bundled clusterfuck of jury rigged shit my neighbors and work throw out. I very rarely have the funds to purchase brand new hardware, and even when i do its never more than 75 per module. So that gives you an idea for what ive been working with over the years, native and optimal solutions to non native and non optimal hardware most of the time.
Something to keep in mind, regardless of what method is chosen, NVRAM doesnt clear on every reboot, so sometimes even after a successful install, it wont show, leading the user to believe the install is busted. Sometimes not, reboot your Mac at least twice, i suggest 3 times to clear any old bootstrap instructions from bootrom and NVRAM. You can also clear VRAM and multireboot by holding the keys Option-Command-P-R on a cold boot, and continue holding them until you hear the Mac boot and reboot 3 times, and make the chime. On the third reboot, everything possible left over is definitely cleared from memory.
Im going to attempt another bare metal install tonight and will update tomorrow or the day after with what ive got so far if anything. Since the Tor community is primarily full of non mac bros, i know most of you will find this post and its predecessors irrelevant and even hilarious. But for you other 6 Darwin bros running relays, i salute you, and hope that some of these discussions and posts will spark some curiosity in using Macintosh computers for relays in the future. Or barring that, if your in the same boat where the best machine to do this on is a 17 year old Cheesegrader in the closet, its possible. Might not be easy all the time, but its definitely possible, and certainly cheaper to get an eBay 5,1 Mac Pro (which mercifully has a 64 bit bootloader thank fuck) in good condition for a few hundred bucks.
Why would you want to? Server grade Xeon hardware and registered memory makes these things absolutely fantastic for server operations if your just getting started, and building a Xeon work station from scratch is not only difficult, but expensive. These towers come packed with workstation grade hardware designed to last, and if you strip Mac OS off of it, and run BSD or linux on a 5,1, it will serve you and the tor community well for many years to come as a relay or bridge.
