- Not to be confused with extensions in classic Mac OS, or kernel extensions in early Mac OS X.
System extensions are Apple's supported method of adding low-level functionality to the user space of macOS.
History[]
Apple introduced system extensions in macOS Catalina (10.15) in 2019 as a more secure alternative to kernel extensions (kexts), which had been used in earlier versions of Mac OS X.[1] Kexts, now referred to as "legacy system extensions, were deemed a security risk and deprecated by Apple. Starting in macOS 10.15.4, the continued use of kernel extensions would trigger a warning to the user. Support for kexts would start being phased out in macOS Big Sur except for Apple-approved enterprise developers.[2] Any legacy kexts still installed would require user approval to be loaded upon every startup.[3]
Both the modern system extensions as well as the legacy kexts can be managed through the Extensions pane of System Preferences.[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Apple deprecating macOS kernel extensions (KEXTs) is a great win for security, by Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet. 2020-02-07.
- ↑ Enterprise management of legacy system extensions in macOS Big Sur, Apple Support. 2020-12-08.
- ↑ Kernel extensions in macOS, Apple Support. 2020-12-14.
