booting apple Mac OS X with verbose details <title> <meta name="author" content="Dennis German"> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en"> <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> <meta name="distribution" content="GLOBAL"> <link rel=stylesheet href=style.css type=text/css> <style> td {text-align:top} </style> </head> <body> Booting Mac OS X is attractive and all, but some users would prefer to see what¿s going on behind the scenes. Verbose mode shows you what is really happening during system startup, and is great for troubleshooting. Typically if you wanted to boot in verbose mode you would hit Command-V during startup, which brings up the familiar white on black console. If you'd prefer to always see the system messages on boot, you can adjust the firmware from the Terminal with the nvram command. <p> To turn on Verbose booting, at a Terminal window <p> <code> sudo nvram -p |grep boot-args </code> #display current setting (may not be present)<br> <code>sudo nvram boot-args="-v" <br> sudo nvram -p |grep boot-args </code>#display new setting </b> <p> Disabling Verbose booting <samp>sudo nvram boot-args=</samp> <p> If you're curious what the current firmware nvram settings are: <samp>sudo nvram -p</samp> <table > <tr><td valign=top> <pre> nvramrc scroll-lock true boot-command mac-boot pci-probe-mask -1 skip-netboot? false default-client-ip default-subnet-mask default-gateway-ip default-server-ip default-router-ip diag-device enet default-mac-address? false boot-device pci2/ata-6@D/@0:3,\\:tbxi real-size -1 logger-size -1 auto-boot? true use-generic? false <td valign=top><pre> boot-volume 3 logger-base -1 little-endian? false selftest-#megs 0 ram-size 0x50000000 output-device screen virt-base -1 boot-file boot-script use-nvramrc? false boot-screen screen screen-#rows 40 screen-#columns 100 console-screen screen input-device keyboard real-base -1 mouse-device mouse oem-banner? false oem-banner <td valign=top><pre> fcode-debug? false real-mode? false aapl,tdm-units virt-size -1 diag-file ,diags load-base 0x800000 output-device-1 scca diag-switch? false gmt-offset 0 input-device-1 scca oem-logo oem-logo? false boot-args </table> <pre> aapl,pci /@f0000000/@10%00MVAD%00\%01%82%ff%81?%ff%81%0e%ba%0c%07%82%ff%01%07%17%ff%018%19d%04%ff%01%05@%ff%01%18%ff%01%88%03%ff%01%03&%ff%01%03%ff%01%06%03%ff%01%04%ff%03%19d%04%ff%01%05@%ff%01%08%ff%01 %03%ff%01%03&%ff%01%01%ff%01%02%03%ff%01%04%ff%01<%ff%05%00 platform-uuid %00%00%00%00%00%00%10%00%80%00%00%11$G?%aa </pre> <p> nvram - manipulate Open Firmware NVRAM variables <p> nvram [ -p ] [ -f filename ] [ -d name ] [ name [= value ]] ... <p> manipulates of Open Firmware NVRAM variables. It can be used to get or set a variable. It can also be used to print all of the variables or set a list of variables from a file. Changes to NVRAM variables are only saved by clean restart or shutdown. <small style=color:gray>In principle, name can be any string. In practice, not all strings will be accepted. New World machines can create new variables as desired. Some variables require administrator privilege to get or set.</small> The value must match the data type required for name. Binary data can be set using the %xx notation, where xx is the hex value of the byte. The type for new variables is always binary data. <table> <tr><td><code> -p <td>Print all of the Open Firmware variables. <tr><td><code> -f <var>filename<td> Set Open Firmware variables list,<code> name=value</code> statements from a text file. If the last character of a line is \, the value will be continued to the next line. <tr><td><code> -d <var>name<td> Deletes the named Open Firmware variable. <tr><td><code> -x <td> use XML format. (preceed <code>-f</code> or <code>-p</code>) </table> EXAMPLES <p> <samp>> nvram boot-args="-s rd=*hd:10"</samp> <p> Set the boot-args variable to "-s rd=*hd:10". This would specify single user mode with the root device in hard drive partition 10. <p> <samp>> nvram my-variable="String One%00String Two%00%00"</samp> <p> Create a new variable, my-variable, containing a list of two C-strings that is terminated by a NUL. <p> <samp>> nvram -d my-variable</samp> <p> Deletes the variable named my-variable. <p> October 28, 2003 </script src=endodoc.js></script> </body> </html>