But what you cant do is re-seal the SSV, which is the whole point of Big Surs improved security. Why do you need to modify the root volume? Howard. 4. mount the read-only system volume However, even an unsealed Big Sur system is more secure than that in Catalina, as its actually a mounted snapshot, and not even the System volume itself. System Integrity Protection (SIP) and the Security Policy (LocalPolicy) are not the same thing. Id like to modify the volume, get rid of some processes who bypasses the firewalls (like Little Snitch read their blog!) From a security standpoint, youre removing part of the primary protection which macOS 11 provides to its system files, when you turn this off thats why Apple has implemented it, to improve on the protection in 10.15. All that needed to be done was to install Catalina to an unencrypted disk (the default) and, after installation, enable FileVault in System Preferences. molar enthalpy of combustion of methanol. To make that bootable again, you have to bless a new snapshot of the volume using a command such as sudo bless --folder / [mountpath]/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot One unexpected problem with unsealing at present is that FileVault has to be disabled, and cant be enabled afterwards. after all SSV is just a TOOL for me, to be sure about the volume integrity. I mean the hierarchy of hashes is being compared to some reference kept somewhere on the same state, right? Howard. And you let me know more about MacOS and SIP. disabled SIP ( csrutil disable) rebooted mounted the root volume ( sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk1s1 /Users/user/Mount) replaced files in /Users/user/Mount created a snapshot ( sudo bless --folder /Users/user/Mount/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot) rebooted (with SIP still disabled) All these we will no doubt discover very soon. Ensure that the system was booted into Recovery OS via the standard user action. Click the Apple symbol in the Menu bar. twitter.com/EBADTWEET/status/1275454103900971012, apple.stackexchange.com/questions/395508/mount-root-as-writable-in-big-sur. so i can log tftp to syslog. Youve stopped watching this thread and will no longer receive emails when theres activity. that was shown already at the link i provided. and they illuminate the many otherwise obscure and hidden corners of macOS. and thanks to all the commenters! And when your system is compromised, what value was there in trying to stop Apple getting private data in the first place? Howard. BTW, I'd appreciate if someone can help to remove some files under /usr because "mount -uw" doesn't work on the "/" root directory. No one forces you to buy Apple, do they? (refer to https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/mac). Howard. Yes. And afterwards, you can always make the partition read-only again, right? Howard. Time Machine obviously works fine. Howard. Post was described on Reddit and I literally tried it now and am shocked. any proposed solutions on the community forums. Why choose to buy computers and operating systems from a vendor you dont feel you can trust? 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. I wouldn't expect csrutil authenticated-root disable to be safe or not safe, either way. from the upper MENU select Terminal. enrollment profile that requires FileVault being enabled at all times, this can lead to even more of a headache. Why I am not able to reseal the volume? Big Sur really isnt intended to be used unsealed, which in any case breaks one of its major improvements in security. Pentium G3258 w/RX 480 GA-H97-D3H | Pentium G3258 | Radeon Other iMac 17.1 w/RX480 GA-Z170M-D3H | i5 6500 | Radeon Other Gigamaxx Moderator Joined May 15, 2016 Messages 6,558 Motherboard GIGABYTE X470 Arous Gaming 7 WiFi CPU Ryzen R9 3900X Graphics RX 480 Mac Aug 12, 2020 #4 MAC_OS said: Immutable system files now reside on the System volume, which not only has complete protection by SIP, but is normally mounted read-only. 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. A good example is OCSP revocation checking, which many people got very upset about. The SSV is very different in structure, because its like a Merkle tree. If it is updated, your changes will then be blown away, and youll have to repeat the process. That makes it incredibly difficult for an attacker to hijack your Big Sur install, but it has [], I installed Big Sur last Tuesday when it got released to the public but I ran into a problem. To start the conversation again, simply It shouldnt make any difference. But I wouldnt have thought thered be any fundamental barrier to enabling this on a per-folder basis, if Apple wanted to. (ex: /System/Library/Frameworks/NetworkExtension.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Info.plist). only. I input the root password, well, I should be able to do whatever I want, wipe the disk or whatever. If anyone finds a way to enable FileVault while having SSV disables please let me know. 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. 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. The first option will be automatically selected. That leaves your System volume without cryptographic verification, of course, and whether it will then successfully update in future must be an open question. twitter wsdot. Trust me: you really dont want to do this in Big Sur. Looks like there is now no way to change that? Apple owns the kernel and all its kexts. This makes it far tougher for malware, which not only has to get past SIP but to mount the System volume as writable before it can tamper with system files. Would you want most of that removed simply because you dont use it? Recently searched locations will be displayed if there is no search query. 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. You must log in or register to reply here. When Authenticated Root is enabled the macOS is booted from a signed volume that is cryptographically protected to prevent tampering with the system volume. How can I solve this problem? But no apple did horrible job and didnt make this tool available for the end user. Best regards. Thank you, and congratulations. csrutil authenticated-root disable How can a malware write there ? So the choices are no protection or all the protection with no in between that I can find. This saves having to keep scanning all the individual files in order to detect any change. What you are proposing making modifications to the system cannot result in the seal matching that specified by Apple. You probably wont be able to install a delta update and expect that to reseal the system either. Please how do I fix this? That said, would you describe installing macOS the way I did with Catalina as redundant if my Mac has a T2 chip? im trying to modify root partition from recovery. Its a neat system. Apple doesnt keep any of the files which need to be mutable in the sealed System volume anyway and put significant engineering effort into ensuring that using firmlinks. If that cant be done, then you may be better off remaining in Catalina for the time being. Howard. In Mojave and Catalina I used to be able to remove the preinstalled apps from Apple by disabling system protection in system recovery and then in Terminal mounting the volume but in Big Sur I found that this isnt working anymore since I ran into an error when trying to mount the volume in Terminal. Well, privacy goes hand in hand with security, but should always be above, like any form of freedom. The only time youre likely to come up against the SSV is when using bootable macOS volumes by cloning or from a macOS installer. The only difference is that with a non-T2 Mac the encryption will be done behind the scenes after enabling FileVault. You dont have a choice, and you should have it should be enforced/imposed. mount the System volume for writing https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher. In Release 0.6 and Big Sur beta x ( i dont remember) i can installed Big Sur but keyboard not working (A). Click again to stop watching or visit your profile/homepage to manage your watched threads. Given the, I have a 34 inch ultrawide monitor with a 3440x1440 resolution, just below the threshold for native HiDPI support. captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of does uga give cheer scholarships. Theres no encryption stage its already encrypted. MacOS Big Sur 11.0 - Index of Need to Know Changes & Links UPDATED! Im guessing theres no TM2 on APFS, at least this year. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/kernel/installing_a_custom_kernel_extension, Custom kexts are linked into a file here: /Library/KernelCollections/AuxiliaryKernelExtensions.kc (which is not on the sealed system volume) The seal is verified against the value provided by Apple at every boot. My recovery mode also seems to be based on Catalina judging from its logo. But I fathom that the M1 MacBook Pro arriving later this week might give it all a run for the money. Thanks. Further hashing is used in the file system metadata itself, from the deepest directories up to the root node, where its called the seal. No, because SIP and the security policies are intimately related, you cant AFAIK have your cake and eat it. In the same time calling for a SIP performance fix that could help it run more efficiently, When we all start calling SIP its real name antivirus/antimalvare and not just blocker of accessing certain system folders we can acknowledge performance hit. In the end, you either trust Apple or you dont. But beyond that, if something were to go wrong in step 3 when you bless the folder and create a snapshot, you could also end up with an non-bootable system. Thats the command given with early betas it may have changed now. The OS environment does not allow changing security configuration options. You cant then reseal it. To make that bootable again, you have to bless a new snapshot of the volume using a command such as