BLESS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual BLESS(8)NAME
bless -- set volume bootability and startup disk options
SYNOPSIS
bless -help
bless -folder directory [-folder9 directory] [-mount directory] [-bootinfo file] [-bootBlocks | -bootBlockFile file] [-save9] [-saveX]
[-use9] [-system file] [-systemfile file] [-label name | -labelfile file] [-openfolder directory] [-setBoot] [-quiet | -verbose]
bless -device device [-format [fstype] [-fsargs args] [-label name | -labelfile file]] [-bootBlockFile file] [-mount directory]
[-wrapper file] [-startupfile file] [-system file] [-setBoot] [-quiet | -verbose]
bless -info [directory] [-getBoot] [-bootBlocks] [-plist] [-quiet | -verbose] [-version]
DESCRIPTION
bless is used to set volume bootability characteristics for PowerPC-based Macintoshes. It can also modify Open Firmware to select a different
device to boot off of. bless has 3 modes of execution: Folder Mode, Device Mode, and Info Mode. Folder Mode allows you to select a folder
on a mounted volume to act as the ``blessed'' system folder, and optionally update Open Firmware to boot from that volume. Device Mode is
normally only used to format and setup a volume for the first time. Info Mode will print out the currently-blessed folder(s) of a volume, or
if no mountpoint is specified, the volume that OF is set to boot from.
Additionally, -help can be used to display the command-line usage summary.
FOLDER MODE
Folder Mode has the following options:
-folder directory A blessed Mac OS X/Darwin system folder, containing a BootX secondary loader for New World machines.
-folder9 directory A Mac OS 9/Classic system folder. If both -folder and -folder9 are given, preference can be given to boot into Mac OS
9 by also using the -use9 flag.
-mount directory In lieu of specifying folders to bless, -mount can be given, and the pre-existing blessed folders are used.
-bootinfo file Create a BootX file in the Mac OS X/Darwin system folder using file as a source.
-bootBlocks Set the boot blocks on the volume. This is required for booting Mac OS 9. Boot blocks can be retrieved from the System
file in the blessed Mac OS 9 system folder, or can be specified more directly using the -bootBlockFile or -system
flags.
-bootBlockFile file Extract boot blocks from file . The first 1024 bytes are read from the data fork of that file.
-save9 Used if no -folder9 flag was given, but if the pre-existing Mac OS 9 system folder should be preserved.
-saveX Used if no -folder flag was given, but if the pre-existing Mac OS X/Darwin system folder should be preserved.
-use9 Used if both -folder and -folder9 were given, but Mac OS 9 should be the default for the volume.
-system file Extract boot blocks from the file System file, using the Carbon resource manager. This will fail under Darwin, where
Carbon is not present.
-systemfile file Data fork System file to place in blessed System Folder
-label name Render a text label used in the OpenFirmware-based OS picker
-labelfile file Use a pre-rendered label used for the OpenFirmware-based OS picker
-openfolder directory Specify a folder to be opened in the Finder when the volume is attached
-setBoot Set the system to boot off the specified partition. This is implemented in a platform-specific manner. On Darwin PPC,
the Open Firmware boot-device variable is modified. On Darwin x86, the MBR partition map is adjusted to mark the spec-
ified partition as active
-setOF Set the boot-device Open Firmware variable to boot off the volume containing. This option is deprecated in favor of
the more generic -setBoot option.
-quiet Do not print any output
-verbose Print verbose output
DEVICE MODE
Device Mode has the following options:
-device device Open the block device device . No volumes should be mounted from device .
-format [fstype] Format the device using the fstype filesystem, or if it is not given, default to HFS+ with an HFS wrapper.
-fsargs arg Additional arguments to newfs for the given filesystem
-label name Give the filesystem the label while formatting, or set an OF-cased OS picker label
-labelfile file Use a pre-rendered label used for the OpenFirmware-based OS picker name (in UTF-8 encoding)
-bootBlockFile file Extract boot blocks from file . The first 1024 bytes are read from the data fork of that file.
-mount directory Use directory as a temporary mount point for the HFS wrapper.
-wrapper file Mount the wrapper on -mount and write file into the wrapper as the default System file.
-system file Override the file specifications for -bootBlockFile and -wrapper and use this file instead for both those functions.
-xcoff file Add the file as the HFS+ StartupFile, and update the partition map to reflect it's location on disk. This is necessary
for Old World booting. This option is deprecated in favor of the more generic -startupfile option
-setBoot Set the system to boot off the specified partition. This is implemented in a platform-specific manner. On Darwin PPC,
the Open Firmware boot-device variable is modified. On Darwin x86, the MBR partition map is adjusted to mark the spec-
ified partition as active
-setOF Set the boot-device Open Firmware variable to boot off the volume containing. This option is deprecated in favor of
the more generic -setBoot option.
-startupfile file Add the file as the HFS+ StartupFile, and update other information on disk as appropriate for the startup file type.
-quiet Do not print any output
-verbose Print verbose output
INFO MODE
Info Mode has the following options:
-info [directory] Print out the blessed system folder for directory . If directory is not specified, print information for the current
boot-device (which may not necessarily be '/' .
-setBoot Print out which device will be used on next boot, according to the boot-device Open Firmware variable. This option
will take into account that OF might be pointing to an auxiliary booter partition, and will print out the correspond-
ing root partition for those cases.
-bootBlocks Print out salient fields from the boot blocks of the volume.
-plist Output all information in Property List (.plist) format, suitable for parsing by CoreFoundation. This is most useful
when bless is executed from another program and its standard output must be parsed.
-quiet Do not print any output
-verbose Print verbose output
-version Print bless version and exit immediately
FILES
/usr/standalone/ppc/bootx.bootinfo Secondary loader with XML headers, used with -bootinfo flag. Used for booting New World PPC-based Macin-
toshes
/System/Library/CoreServices Typical blessed folder for Mac OS X and Darwin
EXAMPLES
FOLDER MODE
To bless a volume with only Mac OS 9:
bless -folder9 "/Volumes/Mac OS 9/System Folder" -bootBlockFile "/usr/share/misc/bootblockdata"
To bless a volume with only Mac OS X or Darwin, and create the BootX file:
bless -folder "/Volumes/Mac OS X/System/Library/CoreServices" -bootinfo "/Volumes/Mac OS X/usr/standalone/ppc/bootx.bootinfo"
To set a volume containing either Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X to be the active volume:
bless -mount "/Volumes/Mac OS" -setBoot
INFO MODE
To gather information about the currently selected volume (as determined by Open Firmware), suitable for piping to a program capable of pars-
ing Property Lists:
bless -info -plist -bootBlocks
SEE ALSO mount(8), newfs(8), nvram(8)Mac OS X August 3, 2003 Mac OS X
