Is mounting the system drive as read-only tested and safe?
Now before I get into this, listen. I know what I'm doing! So don't just post "disabling SIP might result in unintentional modofication of important files" or anything like that!
I am on MacOS Catalina and am trying to modify system files. Apple has made this very difficult because simply disabling SIP through csrutil disable in Recovery Mode isn't enough-the system volume is read-only. I've found a fix mentioned on at least 2 different sites, but one says "Warning: I have not tested this much, and make no promises at all about what the consequences will be (including both immediate consequences, and what happens the next time an OS update changes things). Do you have any important files on this Mac? Do you have a good backup? Do you feel lucky?" and I don't have a backup nor feel lucky. But I've ALWAYS wanted to modify system files, and now seeing a fix-I'm in a tight spot.
Here is what it says to do: To make changes to the normally-read-only volume, you need to both disable SIP's filesystem protection and also re-mount the volume with read access:
- Restart in Recovery mode (Command-R at startup), open Terminal (from the Utilities menu), and disable SIP filesystem protection with:
csrutil enable --without fs
- Restart normally, open Terminal, and remount the root volume for read access:
sudo mount -uw /
At this point, you should be able to make changes everywhere (subject to normal filesystem protections) up until the next restart. Disabling SIP's filesystem protection survives restarts, but remounting with write access does not. If you want everything to be writable after restarting, you'll have to repeat the sudo mount command after each restart. What I'd recommend, though, is locking everything back down as soon as you've made the necessary changes. To do this, restart in Recovery mode, run csrutil enable, then restart again normally."
Is this safe?
Note: Will csrutil enable ---without fs be enough or will I need full-blown csrutil disable?
MacBook
