You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: RennefJ
RennefJ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

how to get to terminal in recovery without password?

I would like to use an institutional recovery key to unlock my boot partition.

However when I enter recovery mode on my Mac, I cannot open a terminal. Instead it shows the admin accounts on the machine and asks me to enter the password. I can then only click on "forgot all passwords", but then it asks me to enter an associated Apple ID.

How can I unlock the Mac with the institutional recovery key when I am not able to enter the terminal in recovery mode?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 28, 2020 12:34 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: RennefJ
RennefJ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Posted on Aug 2, 2020 9:15 AM

Hello,

I am very familiar with the support article that you reference. The problem is that the section you reference is wrong or incomplete. At least it does not work for macOS Catalina.

Step 1 says "start up from macOS Recovery by holding Command-R during startup." -> this works

Step 2 says "... open Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities window.. -> already does not work.

When booting macOS recovery you don't get to the utilities menu immediately. But you get a screen like this

I need to authenticate with a password or if I click on "Forgot all passwords" it asks my for an apple ID or for a personal recovery key.

Only after that I get to terminal or disk utility.

But my goal is to use a IRK if I forget my password. This does not seem to be possible anymore.

If I know the password or a personal RK I don't need the IRK. But the IRK is what I want to use.

View in context

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: RennefJ
RennefJ Author
User level: Level 1
12 points

Aug 2, 2020 9:15 AM in response to trevonr94

Hello,

I am very familiar with the support article that you reference. The problem is that the section you reference is wrong or incomplete. At least it does not work for macOS Catalina.

Step 1 says "start up from macOS Recovery by holding Command-R during startup." -> this works

Step 2 says "... open Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities window.. -> already does not work.

When booting macOS recovery you don't get to the utilities menu immediately. But you get a screen like this

I need to authenticate with a password or if I click on "Forgot all passwords" it asks my for an apple ID or for a personal recovery key.

Only after that I get to terminal or disk utility.

But my goal is to use a IRK if I forget my password. This does not seem to be possible anymore.

If I know the password or a personal RK I don't need the IRK. But the IRK is what I want to use.

Reply
User profile for user: trevonr94
trevonr94
User level: Community Specialist

Jul 30, 2020 3:56 PM in response to RennefJ

Hello there RennefJ,


Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!


We understand that you are having an issue with accessing Terminal via Recovery. We are more than happy to help you out with this.


See the section titled, 'Use the private key to unlock a user's startup disk' in the following article: Set a FileVault recovery key for computers in your organization


Best!

Reply

how to get to terminal in recovery without password?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up