Install proxychains-ng on macOS m1/m2 arm64e natively without Rosetta 2 (2023)

proxychains-ng_m1.txt

# @author Pichaya Morimoto (p.morimoto@sth.sh)

Problem:

```bash
brew install proxychains-ng 
proxychains4 ncat 1.2.3.4 # not working
```

There are public workarounds like https://benobi.one/posts/running_brew_on_m1_for_x86/ 
which suggests to use brew's x86_64 version or run the proxychains4 binary with `arch -x86_64`.
This seems to be working, but it hurts performance (with Rosetta 2 emulator). 

Here we can find the proxychains4 binary, in which, it runs natively on our beloved M1/M2 chips <3

Solution:
# M1/M2 supports arm64e, but we need to enable it.
# https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit/debugging_and_testing_system_extensions#3626024
# Tested on macOS 13.2.1 (2023)

# shutdown & long press Power button to recovery mode -> Terminal
csrutil disable
# reboot to normal mode
# enable arm64e support
sudo nvram boot-args=-arm64e_preview_abi
# reboot
Then,

```bash
git clone https://github.com/rofl0r/proxychains-ng 
cd proxychains-ng 
CFLAGS="-arch arm64e" LDFLAGS="-arch arm64e" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --bindir=/usr/local/bin --libdir=/usr/local/lib --fat-binary-m1
make

$ file ./proxychains4
./proxychains4: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64] [arm64e:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e]
./proxychains4 (for architecture x86_64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
./proxychains4 (for architecture arm64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64
./proxychains4 (for architecture arm64e):	Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e

$ ./proxychains4 -f /opt/homebrew/etc/proxychains.conf ncat 127.0.0.1 22 -v
[proxychains] config file found: /opt/homebrew/etc/proxychains.conf
[proxychains] preloading /xxx/proxychains-ng/libproxychains4.dylib
[proxychains] DLL init: proxychains-ng 4.16-git-10-g199d03d
Ncat: Version 7.93 ( https://nmap.org/ncat )
[proxychains] Strict chain  ...  127.0.0.1:1080  ...  127.0.0.1:22  ...  OK
Ncat: Connected to 127.0.0.1:22.
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_8.9p1 Ubuntu-3ubuntu0.1
```

Proxychains-ng MacOS M1 - killed Issue Fix

NOTE: All credit to pich4ya for the above solution and crypt0nX's comment. I wrote this to save someone else out there from a trial-by-fire for 2 days trying to find and combine many solutions. I came up with nothing new, and the below guide is just my combination of several solutions.

I will note that the above guide brought me the closest to anything out there, so thank you very much pich4ya.

I was, however, still having the following killed issue:

$ ./proxychains4
[1]    7951 killed     ./proxychains4

No matter how I ran it - with sudo, with applications, without applications - nothing worked and it was always being killed.

Fix Instructions:

Before performing ANY of pich4ya's above solution, perform the below steps. Pich4ya's steps are integrated into the below solution.

Step 0) Prerequisite - Remove/Uninstall/Delete Previous proxychains Files.

• This might not be necessary, but to prevent any possible issues, I did this.
• Delete any previously downloaded or installedproxychains/proxychains-ng files, especially if installed with brew or if you installed manually and ran make install.
• There might be a better way to do this, but I just ran a find command and deleted any file containing the roxychai substring:

$ find / -name "*roxychai*" 2>/dev/null
/some/directory/proxychains.conf
/some/other/directory/proxychains4

$ sudo rm /some/directory/proxychains.conf
$ sudo rm /some/other/directory/proxychains4

Step 1)

# a) Download proxychains-ng with git and cd into the folder:
    $ git clone https://github.com/rofl0r/proxychains-ng 
    
    $ cd proxychains-ng

# b) Set the CFLAGS to the following (different to above solution) and run ./configure (one-liner):
    $ CFLAGS="-arch arm64" LDFLAGS="-arch arm64" ./configure

# c) Run 'make', but do NOT run 'install' or 'make install'. Just 'make':
    $ make

# d) Rename the 'proxychains-ng' folder downloaded with the 'git' command in step a) (prevents issues in later step):
    $ cd ../
    $ mv proxychains-ng proxychains-ng-temp

Step 2)

• Perform pich4ya's solution to enable arm64e, as outlined below:

    # a) Shutdown the device.

    # b) Press and hold (long-press) the Power button to turn the device on and boot into Recovery mode.
    #    Hold the power button until it says 'Loading Recovery Mode' (or something similar).

    # c) Click on Settings/Options.

    # d) Click your user and enter password.

    # e) Open a Terminal session with ⌘CMD+SHIFT+T.

    # f) Disable csrutil with below command. You will need to type 'y' and hit enter, as well as entering your password.
    #    NOTE: This takes about a minute to execute, be patient.
        $ csrutil disable

    # g) Reboot the device into normal mode (can use the same terminal session):
        $ reboot

    # h) Once rebooted into normal mode and logged in, open a Terminal session and enable arm64e support:
        $ sudo nvram boot-args=-arm64e_preview_abi

    # i) Once again, reboot into normal mode (can use terminal session):
        $ sudo reboot

Step 3)

• Similar to Step 1), but with a twist on the CFLAGS:

    # a) Download proxychains-ng with git again (this is why we renamed the folder of the previous install) and cd into the folder:
        $ git clone https://github.com/rofl0r/proxychains-ng 
        
        $ cd proxychains-ng

    # b) Set the CFLAGS and run ./configure (as outlined in pich4ya's solution):
        $ CFLAGS="-arch arm64e" LDFLAGS="-arch arm64e" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --bindir=/usr/local/bin --libdir=/usr/local/lib --fat-binary-m1

    # c) Run 'make', but do NOT run 'install' or 'make install'. Just 'make':
        $ make

Step 4) THE FIX

• Remember in Step 1) how we installed proxychains-ng, renamed the folder to proxychains-ng-temp and left it?
• We basically need to replace the proxychains4 binary file we just compiled, with the binary we compiled earlier (in the proxychains-ng-temp folder).

    a) Delete the newly-compiled proxychains4 file in the newly-downloaded `proxychains-ng` folder:
        $ ls -l | grep proxychains
        proxychains-ng
        proxychains-ng-test
        
        $ cd proxychains-ng
        
        $ rm proxychains4

    b) Move the proxychains4 binary compiled earlier from the proxychains-ng-temp folder into the proxychains-ng folder:
        $ ls -l | grep proxychains
        proxychains-ng
        proxychains-ng-test
        
        $ mv proxychains-ng-test/proxychains4 proxychains-ng

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• This should now work. You can delete the old proxychains-ng-test folder.
• We disabled csrutil in an earlier step, which provides some critical system security.
  • I can confirm that you CAN now re-enable it and have proxychains work without issues.
  • Disabling csrutil is only required to run the command in Step 2) d), so we can re-enable it now.
  • Re-enable steps:

    # a) Shutdown the device.

    # b) Press and hold (long-press) the Power button to turn the device on and boot into Recovery mode.
    #    Hold the power button until it says 'Loading Recovery Mode' (or something similar).

    # c) Click on Settings/Options.

    # d) Click your user and enter password.

    # e) Open a Terminal session with ⌘CMD+SHIFT+T.

    # f) Enable csrutil with below command. You will need to type 'y' and hit enter, as well as entering your password.
    #    NOTE: This takes about a minute to execute, be patient.
        $ csrutil enable

    # g) Reboot the device into normal mode (can use the same terminal session):
        $ reboot

• You need to specify the proxychains.conf configuration file every time you run proxychains.
  • We can specify this using the -f switch.
  • The proxychains.conf file is stored in the src folder of the proxychains-ng folder downloaded with git:

        $ pwd
        /Users/sorryyyy/path-to-proxychains-folder/proxychains-ng
        
        $ ./proxychains -f src/proxychains.conf [COMMAND]