Originally written: 11/8/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.10.0
+
Originally written: 11/8/2015; last Web page update:
+12/12/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.10.1
This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!
At the startup chime, hold down the Option+R key combination. The computer should launch into the Recovery system. This is a very bare system, with only a window providing a way to launch a handful of utilities and a menu bar. You must use the latter.
+
At the startup chime, hold down the Command+R key combination. The computer should launch into the Recovery system. This is a very bare system, with only a window providing a way to launch a handful of utilities and a menu bar. You must use the latter.
Select Utilities -> Terminal from the menu bar. A Terminal window should open.
Type df -h in the Terminal. This produces a list of partitions that are mounted. Locate the one on which you unpacked the rEFInd files. It will normally be /Volumes/Somename, where Somename is the volume's name.
-
In the Terminal, use cd to change to the directory where the rEFInd files you unpacked earlier are stored. For instance, on my MacBook, I would type cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/rodsmith/Destkop/refind-0.10.0. Note that if any element of this path includes a space, you must either enclose the entire path in quotes or precede the space with a backslash (\), as in this example's Macintish\ HD volume name.
+
In the Terminal, use cd to change to the directory where the rEFInd files you unpacked earlier are stored. For instance, on my MacBook, I would type cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/rodsmith/Destkop/refind-0.10.2. Note that if any element of this path includes a space, you must either enclose the entire path in quotes or precede the space with a backslash (\), as in this example's Macintosh\ HD volume name.
Type ls to verify that refind-install is present in this directory.
As described later on this page, rEFInd 0.10.0 provides SIP control features, but they're disabled by default—except on the USB flash drive and CD-R images available from the rEFInd downloads page. On these images, the SIP control features are enabled, and can toggle between the two main modes you can set via csrutil enable and csrutil disable in the Recovery HD system. Thus, to disable SIP to install rEFInd, you can:
+
As described later on this page, rEFInd 0.10.0 and later provide SIP control features, but they're disabled by default—except on the USB flash drive and CD-R images available from the rEFInd downloads page. On these images, the SIP control features are enabled, and can toggle between the two main modes you can set via csrutil enable and csrutil disable in the Recovery HD system. Thus, to disable SIP to install rEFInd, you can:
Download the USB flash drive or CD-R version of rEFInd, as suitable for your computer.
-
Prepare a boot medium. With the CD-R image, you can use your favorite disc-burning software. With the USB flash drive image, you can use dd to copy the image to a blank disk, as in dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.10.0.img of=/dev/disk3 to write the image to /dev/disk3. Any existing data on the target disk will be destroyed! For this reason, it's imperative that you specify the correct target (of=) disk; if you accidentally point this command to your regular hard disk, recovery will be difficult!
+
Prepare a boot medium. With the CD-R image, you can use your favorite disc-burning software. With the USB flash drive image, you can use dd to copy the image to a blank disk, as in dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.10.2.img of=/dev/disk3 to write the image to /dev/disk3. Any existing data on the target disk will be destroyed! For this reason, it's imperative that you specify the correct target (of=) disk; if you accidentally point this command to your regular hard disk, recovery will be difficult!
Reboot and hold down the Option (or Alt) key to see the Mac's built-in boot manager.
Once rEFInd is installed, you can use it to manage SIP features; however, the rEFInd features needed to do this are disabled by default. You must uncomment or add two lines to your refind.conf file:
-
Note: Apple code samples and technical discussions are filled with the acronym "CSR." I don't know for what this acronym stands, but as it appears to be used in preference to "SIP" or "rootless" when referring to specific values, I used it in the refind.conf files token names.
+
Note: Apple code samples and technical discussions are filled with the acronym "CSR." I don't know what this acronym means, but as it appears to be used in preference to "SIP" or "rootless" when referring to specific values, I used it in the refind.conf files token names.
Note that both of these options must be set appropriately. If either of them is missing or misconfigured, rEFInd will not display the new SIP tool. A typical configuration using these features might look like this:
+
Note that both of these options must be set appropriately. If either of them is missing or misconfigured, rEFInd will not display the SIP tool. A typical configuration using these features might look like this:
+
@@ -57,8 +57,7 @@ href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
-
-