How do I repair permissions and rebuild the cache in Big Sur & later?

[Hervé]

Big Sur brought significant changes to the way kexts operate with the kernel and further tightened filesystem protection. It's now most difficult for anyone to make any changes to /S/L/E folder. As such, kexts should be considered cacheable only from /L/E.

 

To repair permissions after any any kext addition, removal or modification in /L/E, type the following Terminal commands:

sudo chmod -Rf 755 /L*/E*
sudo chown -Rf 0:0 /L*/E*
sudo touch -f /L*/E*

`

To rebuild the cache, type the following Terminal commands

sudo kextcache -i /          -> will invoke the required kmutil command
sudo kcditto

 

For additional information on the commands:

man kmutil
man kcditto

 

[Hervé]

Looks like the above method no longer works, certainly not in Big Sur 11.4, possibly before.

 

@Slice reminded us that Gatekeeper can be used as an alternative. Many people often disable Gatekeeper by default through Terminal command:

sudo spctl --master-disable

 

Kexts can be cached from /L/E in Big Sur (and Monterey) by re-enabling Gatekeeper, copying the kexts to /L/E through Terminal via sudo commands and authorizing the kexts from Security & Privacy PrefPane. Upon such authorisation, Gatekeeper will rebuild the cache and restart macOS with the newly cached kexts. Gatekeeper can then be disabled again afterwards.

sudo spctl --master-enable
sudo cp -Rf <path>/xxxx.kext /L*/E*/

 

 

 

GateKeeper can be disabled again afterwards.