I am new to Boot Runner 3 and want to create my custom profile.
I would like to know the following before giving a try. Thank you.
When creating custom profile, should I left blank if I prefer to use Boot Runner 3 default setting? For example, if I did not have custom background jpg and want to use Boot Runner 3 default background jpg, can I left blank in “Custom background path” when creating profile?
Will default profile being overwritten and cause Boot Runner 3 not function after install custom profile if custom profile not having proper settings? How can I backup and rollback default profile?
Will custom profile be able to set an option menu to boot into recovery mode directly?
Thanks for writing in and trying out Boot Runner. Let me see if I can answer the questions :
When creating custom profile, should I left blank if I prefer to use Boot Runner 3 default setting? For example, if I did not have custom background jpg and want to use Boot Runner 3 default background jpg, can I left blank in “Custom background path” when creating profile?
Yes, if you leave it blank, the defaults will apply. You don’t have to fill everything out.
Will default profile being overwritten and cause Boot Runner 3 not function after install custom profile if custom profile not having proper settings? How can I backup and rollback default profile?
If you remove the profile in Settings->Profile, the default profile will be used. No need to back it up.
Will custom profile be able to set an option menu to boot into recovery mode directly?
Sure. Just enter the device in “Show unmounted volumes” (for example, disk1s3). Then under VM and Volume config, you can configure how it looks.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the guidance. I followed the instruction, but was still not able to get into Recovery Mode directly from Boot Runner menu. My setting as below and please have a look and further advice. Thank you.
Recovery HD is disk1s3 from diskutil list:
/dev/disk1 (synthesized): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +160.7 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 62.1 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 80.2 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 1.5 GB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4
I set disk1s3 to “Show unmounted volumes” under Basic Settings.
Further set disk1s3 to “Name or identifier” under Volume & VM Config profile.
Turns out that booting into recovery requires an additional step to set the NVRAM:
This seems to work for me. I can have boot runner set the nvram so it can boot into recovery, but the you’ll have to set the macOS start up disk in recovery once you are done. Will that work? Can you give me some background on why you want to do this?
Ah, I posted too soon. Turns out you don’t need to set the startup disk after you are in the recovery partition. A simple reboot brings you back to the macOS.
tperfitt, thanks for your advices.
BTW, why is customizing no longer part of Boot Runner 3?
I do not see any sense in using a web service instead of a local solution.
Thanks for the feedback. Can you let me know why a local solution is better than web? The web allows us to add features in a lot faster than updating the configuration app. Also, when people deploy Boot Runner in labs, they don’t usually include the configuration app and focused on configuration profiles.
Well, it’s local and I don’t need an internet connection
To be serious:
Well, a local solution could be more user friendly, allowing the user to select from existing partitions i.e. in a GUI.
If I’m using MacOS, Bootcamp and Linux I have to know wich partition I have to put in the Webservice’s interface.
A local tool of course can write editable profiles, too. :
Thanks for the feedback. Boot Runner was original written for labs and has the largest deploy base there, but I understand that a local app would be good as well. I’ll add it to our list of requested features. Anything else that you are looking for?
