Normally, you should be able to install a recent kext in the Finder. mount -uw /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD. I wanted to make a thread just to raise general awareness about the dangers and caveats of modifying system files in Big Sur, since I feel this doesn't really get highlighted enough. Please support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/roelvandepaarWith thanks & praise to God, and with . The sealed System Volume isnt crypto crap I really dont understand what you mean by that. In Mojave, all malware has to do is exploit a vulnerability in SIP, gain elevated privileges, and it can do pretty well what it likes with system files. User profile for user: You can verify with "csrutil status" and with "csrutil authenticated-root status". It sounds like Apple may be going even further with Monterey. Paste the following command into the terminal then hit return: csrutil disable; reboot You'll see a message saying that System Integrity Protection has been disabled, and the Mac needs to restart for changes to take effect. Thank you. Howard. All that needed to be done was to install Catalina to an unencrypted disk (the default) and, after installation, enable FileVault in System Preferences. csrutil disable csrutil authenticated-root disable # Big Sur+ Reboot, and SIP will have been adjusted accordingly. You have to teach kids in school about sex education, the risks, etc. Thank you yes, weve been discussing this with another posting. Furthermore, users are reporting that before you can do that, you have to disable FileVault, and it doesnt appear that you can re-enable that either. For Macs without OpenCore Legacy Patcher, simply run csrutil disable and csrutil authenticated-root disable in RecoveryOS For hackintoshes, set csr-active-config to 030A0000 (0xA03) and ensure this is correctly applied You may use RecoveryOS instead however remember that NVRAM reset will wipe this var and require you to re-disable it But then again we have faster and slower antiviruses.. csrutil authenticated-root disable thing to do, which requires first to disable FileVault, else that second disabling command simply fails. https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher. Individual files have hashes, then those hashes have hashes, and so on up in a pyramid to reach the single master Seal at the top. Re-enabling FileVault on a different partition has no effect, Trying to enable FileVault on the snapshot fails with an internal error, Enabling csrutil also enables csrutil authenticated-root, The snapshot fails to boot with either csrutil or csrutil authenticated-root enabled. Thank you. Today we have the ExclusionList in there that cant be modified, next something else. I essentially want to know how many levels of protection you can retain after making a change to the System folder if that helps clear it up. and disable authenticated-root: csrutil authenticated-root disable. Thank you. Longer answer: the command has a hyphen as given above. the notorious "/Users/Shared/Previously Relocated Items" garbage, forgot to purge before upgrading to Catalina), do "sudo mount -uw /System/Volumes/Data/" first (run in the Terminal after normal booting). For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. If you zap the PRAM of a computer and clear its flags, you'd need to boot into Recovery Mode and repeat step 1 to disable SSV again, as it gets re-enabled by default. Assuming you have entered the Recovery mode already, by holding down the Power button when powering-up/rebooting. (refer to https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/mac). There is a real problem with sealing the System volume though, as the seal is checked against that for the system install. Howard. In outline, you have to boot in Recovery Mode, use the command I wish you the very best of luck youll need it! If the host machine natively has Catalina or older installed to its internal disk, its native Recovery Mode will not support the "csrutil authenticated-root" flag in Terminal. Im sure that well see bug fixes, but whether it will support backups on APFS volumes I rather doubt. Then you can boot into recovery and disable SIP: csrutil disable. For without ensuring rock-solid security as the basis for protecting privacy, it becomes all too easy to bypass everything. Tell a Syrian gay dude what is more important for him, some malware wiping his disk full of pictures and some docs or the websites visited and Messages sent to gay people he will be arrested and even executed. Its very visible esp after the boot. Its not the encrypted APFS that you would use on external storage, but implemented in the T2 as disk controller. If you still cannot disable System Integrity Protection after completing the above, please let me know. after all SSV is just a TOOL for me, to be sure about the volume integrity. I havent tried this myself, but the sequence might be something like Thank you. @JP, You say: Catalina 10.15 changes that by splitting the boot volume into two: the System and Data volumes, making up an APFS Volume Group. Sadly, everyone does it one way or another. But I could be wrong. so i can log tftp to syslog. A walled garden where a big boss decides the rules. Howard. I don't have a Monterey system to test. This thread has a lot of useful info for supporting the older Mac no longer supported by Big Sur. Each runs the same test, and gets the same results, and it always puzzles me why several identical checks cant be combined into one, with each of those processes accessing the same result. You missed letter d in csrutil authenticate-root disable. 1-800-MY-APPLE, or, https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/mac, Sales and Howard. Im hoping I dont have to do this at all, but it might become an issue for some of our machines should users upgrade despite our warning(s). 1- break the seal (disable csrutil and authenticated root) 2- delete existing snapshot (s) and tag an empty one to be able to boot 3- inject the kext with opencore (not needed if you are able to load the kext from /S/L/E.. The merkle tree is a gzip compressed text file, and Big Sur beta 4 is here: https://github.com/rickmark/mojo_thor/blob/master/SSV/mtree.i.txt. I tried multiple times typing csrutil, but it simply wouldn't work. and seal it again. csrutil authenticated root disable invalid command. 3. The detail in the document is a bit beyond me! P.S. I have a screen that needs an EDID override to function correctly. I didnt know about FileVault, although in a T2 or M1 Mac the internal disk should still be encrypted as normal. Well, privacy goes hand in hand with security, but should always be above, like any form of freedom. BTW, I'd appreciate if someone can help to remove some files under /usr because "mount -uw" doesn't work on the "/" root directory. Thank you. Also, you might want to read these documents if you're interested. Howard, Have you seen that the new APFS reference https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf has a section on Sealed Volumes? For example, when you open an app without a quarantine flag, several different parts of the security and privacy system perform checks on its signature. Ensure that the system was booted into Recovery OS via the standard user action. As mentioned by HW-Tech, Apple has added additional security restrictions for disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP) on Macs with Apple silicon. You are using an out of date browser. Just great. Id be interested to know in what respect you consider those or other parts of Big Sur break privacy. Im not fan of any OS (I use them all because I have to) but Privacy should always come first, no mater the price!. I think you should be directing these questions as JAMF and other sysadmins. Follow these step by step instructions: reboot. Sure. Id be interested to hear some old Unix hands commenting on the similarities or differences. It is already a read-only volume (in Catalina), only accessible from recovery! You must log in or register to reply here. This will create a Snapshot disk then install /System/Library/Extensions/ GeForce.kext I wouldn't expect csrutil authenticated-root disable to be safe or not safe, either way. OCSP? Im trying to implement the snapshot but you cant run the sudo bless folder /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/CoreServices bootefi create-snapshot in Recovery mode because sudo command is not available in recovery mode. I also read somewhere that you could only disable SSV with FireVault off, but that definitely needs to stay on. Why is kernelmanagerd using between 15 and 55% of my CPU on BS? If you can do anything with the system, then so can an attacker. Howard. Thank you. But no apple did horrible job and didnt make this tool available for the end user. They have more details on how the Secure Boot architecture works: Nov 24, 2021 5:24 PM in response to agou-ops, Nov 24, 2021 5:45 PM in response to Encryptor5000. .. come one, I was running Dr.Unarhiver (from TrendMicro) for months, AppStore App, with all certificates and was leaking private info until Apple banned it. Just yesterday I had to modify var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd/disabled.501.plist because if you unload something, it gets written to that file and stays there forever, even if the app/agent/daemon is no longer present that is a trace you may not want someone to find. Hello, you say that you can work fine with an unsealed volume, but I also see that for example, breaking the seal prevents you from turning FileVault ON. Thanks in advance. Howard. For years I reflexively replaced the Mail apps unappealing postage stamp icon with a simple, old-fashioned, eye-catching mailbox it just seemed to make visual sense to me but with all the security baked into recent incarnations of macOS, I would never attempt that now. In Catalina you could easily move the AppleThunderboltNHI.kext to a new folder and it worked fine, but with the Big Sur beta you cant do that. csrutil authenticated root disable invalid commandverde independent obituaries. I also wonder whether the benefits of the SSV might make your job a lot easier never another apparently broken system update, and enhanced security. Further details on kernel extensions are here. Hoakley, Thanks for this! Thank you. Of course there were and are apps in the App Store which exfiltrate (not just leak, which implies its accidental) sensitive information, but thats totally different. No need to disable SIP. OS upgrades are also a bit of a pain, but I have automated most of the hassle so its just a bit longer in the trundling phase with a couple of extra steps. Howard. Search articles by subject, keyword or author. Sounds like youd also be stuck on the same version of Big Sur if the delta updates arent able to verify the cryptographic information. Therefore, I usually use my custom display profile to enable HiDPI support at 2560x1080, which requires access to /System/Library/Displays/Contents/Resources/Overrides/. However, it very seldom does at WWDC, as thats not so much a developer thing. Sealing is about System integrity. The seal is verified each time your Mac starts up, by the boot loader before the kernel is loaded, and during installation and update of macOS system files. This ensures those hashes cover the entire volume, its data and directory structure. You need to disable it to view the directory. Couldnt create snapshot on volume /Volumes/Macintosh HD: Operation not permitted, i have both csrutil and csrutil authenticated-root disabled. I keep a macbook for 8years, and I just got a 16 MBP with a T2 it was 3750 EUR in a country where the average salary is 488eur. Thank you. Theres no encryption stage its already encrypted. Those familiar with my file integrity tools will recognise that this is essentially the same technique employed by them. I like things to run fast, really fast, so using VMs is not an option (I use them for testing). Run the command "sudo. csrutil authenticated-root disable csrutil disable macOS mount <DISK_PATH> 1 2 $ mount /dev/disk1s5s1 on / (apfs, sealed, local, read-only, journaled) / /dev/disk1s5s1 /dev/disk1s5s1 "Snapshot 1"APFS <MOUNT_PATH> ~/mount 1 mkdir -p -m777 ~/mount 1 Very few people have experience of doing this with Big Sur. No one forces you to buy Apple, do they? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-11-big-sur-on-unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/page-264, There is a big-sur-micropatcher that makes unlocking and patching easy here: modify the icons SSV seems to be an evolution of that, similar in concept (if not of execution), sort of Tripwire on steroids. Big Sur really isnt intended to be used unsealed, which in any case breaks one of its major improvements in security. as you hear the Apple Chime press COMMAND+R. that was also explicitly stated on the second sentence of my original post. Tampering with the SSV is a serious undertaking and not only breaks the seal which can never then be resealed but it appears to conflict with FileVault encryption too. Catalina boot volume layout These options are also available: To modify or disable SIP, use the csrutil command-line tool. If you choose to modify the system, you cant reseal that, but you can run Big Sur perfectly well without a seal. to turn cryptographic verification off, then mount the System volume and perform its modifications. (I know I can change it for an individual user; in the past using ever-more-ridiculous methods Ive been able to change it for all users (including network users) OMG I just realized weve had to turn off SIP to enable JAMF to allow network users. I think this needs more testing, ideally on an internal disk. See: About macOS recovery function: Restart the computer, press and hold command + R to enter the recovery mode when the screen is black (you can hold down command + R until the apple logo screen appears) to enter the recovery mode, and then click the menu bar, " Utilities >> Terminal". not give them a chastity belt. This in turn means that: If you modified system files on a portable installation of macOS (ie: on an external drive) via this method, any host computer you plug it into will fail to boot the drive if SSV is enabled on the host. If you wanted to run Mojave on your MBP, you only have to install Catalina and run it in a VM, which would surely give you even better protection.