Recovery Mode – How to Safely Install rEFind

dual-bootefirecoverysip

I want to dual boot OSX and Linux on my Macbook Air, and to do this, I read that I need to install rEFind. If I try doing that I get a message in the terminal:

**** ALERT: SIP ENABLED! ****

rEFInd cannot be installed because System Integrity Protection (SIP) seems
to be enabled! You must install rEFInd from your Recovery installation or
from another OS. To install from the Recovery system:

  1. Reboot
  2. Hold down Command+R as the chime sounds
  3. When the OS has booted, select Utilities->Terminal
  4. Change to this directory with the 'cd' command; it will probably be under
     /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/kramer65/Downloads/refind-bin-0.10.4
  5. Re-run this script.

If you believe SIP is NOT enabled, you may attempt an installation anyhow,
but it may fail.

For more on this subject, see http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/sip.html

Do you want to attempt installation (Y/N)?

So I followed the instructions. I rebooted into recovery and then tried to install rEFind again, but I get the same message.

When I try to install rEFind from recovery mode, can I safely ignore the message about SIP and type in Y to continue installing rEFind? All tips are welcome!

Best Answer

Though you shouldn't see this message (even with SIP enabled) in Recovery Mode you can type Y and continue installing rEFInd.

A less rocky but time consuming way is to disable SIP in Recovery Mode by entering csrutil disable in Terminal.app.

After rebooting to your main boot volume open Terminal.app, enter csrutil status and if SIP is disabled, install rEFInd.

Then reboot to Recovery Mode again and enable SIP again with csrutil enable. After rebooting you should get the rEFInd boot window.

Related Question