NAME

APFSUserAgent — APFS new container observer

DESCRIPTION

The APFSUserAgent watches for IOKit notifications about new APFS containers appearing, and about volume hash mismatch.

If APFSUserAgent finds a new container with an encrypted volume, it will pop up a DiskUnlock dialog to ask the user for volume unlock password.

The APFSUserAgent can display the following notifications:
Incompatible Features - Mounting the device (volume or container) was rejected because it uses features that are not supported by the current version of macOS. Updating to a newer version of macOS may allow the device to mount.
Volume Hash Mismatch - The cryptographic integrity of the volume is not valid. Reinstalling macOS on this volume will fix its integrity.

The APFSUserAgent uses the defaults bundle com.apple.APFSUserAgent in order to control whether or not to pop notifications or automatically ask the user to unlock an encrypted volume.
The settings are controlled globally - for all devices, or locally - for a specific volume or container, identified by its UUID. In the defaults dictionary, the key is the action that the user would like to mute, and the value is the date to mute up to. APFSUserAgent Will use the system timezone.

The values in the defaults dictionary could be updated using the defaults cli as well.

KEYS

The bundle keys are as follows:

IncompatibleFeatures

Mute notifications about either a volume or a container that has features which are not supported with the current running OS.

HashMismatch

Mute notification about volume hash mismatch.

DontUnlockVolume

Disable the DiskUnlock dialog to ask the user for volume unlock password.

MuteAllNotifications

Mute all APFS notifications. Does not include the dialog to unlock a volume.

EXAMPLE

The following setting mutes the HashMismatch notification only for the volume with UUID F55502F4-1A9E-4B48-8A11-106E1226AE2F up to 2021-08-18 15:10:31, and mutes the IncompatibleFeatures notification for any device, up to 2021-08-18 15:09:43

~ % defaults read com.apple.APFSUserAgent
{
"F55502F4-1A9E-4B48-8A11-106E1226AE2F" = {
HashMismatch = "2021-08-18 15:10:31";
};
IncompatibleFeatures = "2021-08-18 15:09:43";
}
~ %

EXIT STATUS

APFSUserAgent always exits with 0.

SEE ALSO

defaults(1), apfsd(8), diskutil(8)