Re-enable Secure Boot (Security Startup Utility)

Question

Re-enable Secure Boot (Security Startup Utility)

Hi Apple Mac'ers,

My problems is that:

unable to re-enable "Secure Boot" via "Security Startup Utility" after I disabled this to clone copy of old Mac mini on top of new one.

Situation I purchased a new Mac mini (2018 / i7 6 Core) which includes T2 security chip to replace old Mac mini (2012 / i7 4 Core).

As the old mini has software and other things install I wanted to just clone disk from hold Mac to new Mac (a process I have used many many times as I have upgraded many Mac over the years).

My typical approach has been to:

1. Ensure old mac is on same SW version as new mac

2. Setup up old mac in target disk mode

3. Boot new mac from old mac's target disk mode

4. Clone target disk to internal disk using running new mac, booted from old mac disk

5. After clone, simply reboot new Mac and volia new Mac is setup identically to old Mac

With new Mac mini I could not do this as it would not let me boot from external drive due to default secure boot configuration. So I was forced to first boot up new Mac mini and do a clean install. I then booted into recovery and disabled secure boot and enabled allowing boot from external disk.

I then just followed procedure above and new Mac is now running exactly like the old Mac, but much faster.... all good.

However when I go to Recovery mode via holding "Command + R" on startup I can no longer get into "Security Startup Utility" to re-enable secure boot. It says that there is no Administrator password configured.

To try to fix the problem I created a new Administrator level account on machine, but I still get error.

So please Apple / Users please advise how can I get my Mac secured again or is the flash new T2 chip just a waste of board space... remember I am the owner of this Mac and need to have ways to control my machine.

Please do not tell me I need to wipe out box and redo everything via "Migration Assistant" as that does not result in new Mac that is just like my old Mac.

Thank you for any assistance.

Zebity Spring.

Mac mini, macOS Mojave (10.14.1), Security Startup Utility

Posted on Nov 15, 2018 2:44 PM

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Answer 1

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zebity-spring Author

Level 1

13 points

Nov 15, 2018 10:27 PM in response to zebity-spring

Hi Tesserax,

good news as I had already done of wipe of my new Mac mini's disk prior to doing clone, all I had to do was:

1. # sudo sysadminctl interactive -secureTokenStatus <admin user>

To get status of security and then...

2. # sudo sysadminctl interactive -secureTokenOn <admin user> -password <admin password>

To get security token passed onto admin account

Even though I put in credentials it still popped up with authentication window and just put credential in again.

3. Reboot to Recovery "Command + R" and I was then able to use "Security Startup Utility" to re-enable secure boot (while leaving external device boot enabled as I a sometimes need this.

Not sure if you need the "sudo", but you typically do for privileged commands to used it in any case.

Happy Mac camper again... and happy with new mini Mac as new server for household.

Cheers,

Zebity Spring

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Answer 2

Nov 15, 2018 3:45 PM in response to Tesserax

Hi Tesserax,

Thanks for tip, that thread appears to provide solution, as my clone’ing I wiped the internal APFS drive, so hope I can get by with just last step of procedure to gift my admin account with required security token.

I now have around 1.4 TB on my new disk, so would like to avoid having to do further re-clone as I do not have required size spare disk...

Key motivation for getting new Mac mini was need for much more disk space...

i will report back once I try the token gifting.

cheers,

Zebity Spring

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