SilentKnight 1.
21 (Universal)
Use
SilentKnight performs a suite of checks on the security settings of your Mac. It
does so by checking which model of Mac it’s running on, and looking up the
current EFI firmware and security data versions on my GitHub server, where I
maintain lists for each type of Mac. This is usually very quick, but can take a few
moments to connect. It then checks with Apple’s servers whether there are any
uninstalled security updates for your Mac. This takes rather longer, during which
it shows a busy spinner, before adding that final piece of information to its
window.
If you don’t have an Internet connection, these will all fail.
If there are updates available, a button labelled Install all updates will
appear. If you’re unsure what updates are waiting, these are listed at the end of
the text in the scrolling view. When you Install all updates, all those outstanding
updates will be installed. As those could include a full macOS update, that can
take a very long time. It might also include updates which you don’t wish to
install. If you only want to install some of them, see the section below explaining
how to install single updates.
You shouldn’t normally use SilentKnight to download and
install macOS updates, as those are very large. They’re
much better installed using Software Update as usual,
which provides a progress indicator and other aids. If there’s
a macOS update available and a small security update, use Software Update to
install the macOS update first, then afterwards run SilentKnight to download and
install any remaining security updates.
The Install all updates button only appears when there are updates waiting.
You can always install all pending updates using the menu command instead.
After installing updates, the scrolling text view tells you the latest install dates of
each item, and SilentKnight checks installed versions again to confirm that the
update installed correctly. It also displays the emoji 👈 next to those items which
have been updated. That emoji is displayed for 24 hours after any new update.
Full details of each of the items checked and how to solve their problems are
available in the reference, accessed using the SilentKnight Reference
command in the Help menu.
To run all these checks again, click on the Check button or use that command in
the File menu. This first clears the current records before obtaining fresh results.
You can Select all the text in the scrolling view, Copy and paste it as plain or
rich text into another app.
To save the contents of the scrolling view into a plain text file use the Export…
command in the File menu.
To make the text larger in the lower scrolling view, press ⌘+, which will enlarge it
by 1 point up to a maximum of 60 points; to make it smaller, press ⌘–, which will
shrink it by 1 point down to a minimum of 4 points. The current text size is set as
the default when you next open SilentKnight.
Closing the single window quits the app.
Note that SilentKnight only obtains data from the server: it doesn’t disclose or
upload any information about your Mac other than the minimum which is routinely
collected by GitHub.
Installing single updates
SilentKnight’s main window only lets you install all pending updates. There are
circumstances in which you may not wish to install all of them. You can now
install individual named updates using a separate window, opened using the
Install Named Update… command in the File menu.
When SilentKnight checks for updates, it shows the list of available updates in
the main scrolling text view of the main window. For each update available, this
normally lists the name of that update (without any embedded spaces) in the first
of a pair of lines. Select that name and copy it from that window. Then paste it
into the text box at the top of the SilentKnight Updater window. Click on the
Install Named Update button to download and install it. Repeat this
procedure for each update you wish to install.
If the command returns an error, it’s most probable that you gave the wrong
name. Try copying and pasting a different part of the listing from the main window
until it works. Closing the Updater window doesn’t quit the app.
Downloading but not installing updates
By default, SilentKnight normally both downloads and installs any updates which
are available for your Mac. To give you greater flexibility, this version now lets
you download updates without installing them automatically. This allows you to
choose when to install updates. For example, you might wish to download both
XProtect and MRT updates, but only install XProtect data at first, then leave it a
couple of days before installing the new version of MRT.
To turn off automatic installation, and only download updates, select the Install
Updates command in the SilentKnight menu. It will then be unchecked and
change to read Download Updates. All buttons and menu commands which
normally refer to installing updates will then refer to downloading them.
Downloaded updates are located in the /Library/Updates folder, which is
automatically opened for you once they’re downloaded.
To help you avoid downloading rather than installing by mistake, when
downloading is active, SilentKnight’s window titles are prefaced by the ⚠️
warning triangle.
Preventing softwareupdate checks
macOS High Sierra and Mojave Security Update 2020-003, and Catalina
10.15.5, changed the way that Software Update works. This prevents you from
turning off the red badge which indicates that an unwanted update is waiting to
be downloaded and installed. It’s possible to alter this, but when you access
Software Update again, the red badge may reappear. To ensure that this doesn’t
happen when using SilentKnight, there is a new option which stops SilentKnight
from checking Apple’s update servers for available updates.
To disable checking for available updates, either select the Check Updates item
in the SilentKnight menu (where you’d expect Preferences to be). That menu
command will then change to read Don’t Check Updates. When you next open
SilentKnight, the softwareupdate check won’t be run. You can also set that in
SilentKnight’s preferences file by entering the following command:
defaults write [Link] noCheckSWU
true
To enable softwareupdate checks again, simple select the Don’t Check Updates
command. It will change back to Check Updates, and when you next click on the
Check button or open SilentKnight, the normal softwareupdate check will be run.
You can also use the command
defaults write [Link] noCheckSWU
false
FAQ
If you can’t find an answer to a question you have about SilentKnight, go to the
Product Support page using the command in the Help menu, and read the FAQ
which is provided from there. This details external connections, privacy matters,
and more.
Checking for updates
Whenever you open SilentKnight, it may check to see if an update to the app is
available. This doesn’t use the popular Sparkle mechanism for updating in place,
but works as detailed here.
Once the app has successfully completed its integrity check, it looks at whether
update checking has been turned off in its preferences file. If that has, it
abandons any attempt to check for updates. If checking is allowed, it then checks
when it last checked for updates. If that was more than 12 hours ago, it continues
to perform the check. It then connects to my GitHub server, from where it
downloads a list of current versions of my apps. It doesn’t upload any data to the
GitHub server at all, and no statistics beyond GitHub normal connection figures
are collected either: no personal identifiers are recorded.
If there is an update available, SilentKnight then checks that its location is on my
WordPress blog, and posts a dialog which invites you to download the update. If
you click on the Download button, it then points your default browser at that
update, which should trigger the update to be downloaded to your normal
downloads folder. The update is received as a regular Zip archive, and is exactly
the same as you would download from the Downloads page on my blog. It also
carries a quarantine flag, so that when you unZip it and install the app inside, it
undergoes normal first run ‘Gatekeeper’ security checks. If you click on the
Ignore button, SilentKnight won’t remind you about it again for another 6 hours.
An additional item at the end of the Help menu explains the update status. If no
update check is performed, or the check fails, the last item reads Update not
checked. If the check is performed and update information is obtained, even
when no update is available or you decline to download it, that menu item reads
Checked for update and is ticked (but still disabled).
You can customise this behaviour by changing SilentKnight’s preferences. The
keys to use are:
• noUpdateCheck, a Boolean. When set to true, this disables all update
checking. Default is false.
• updateCheckInt, a real number (Double). When set to a value greater
than 1.0, the minimum time interval between checks, in seconds. Default is
43200, which is 12 hours. If you set it to any value less than 1, SilentKnight
will reset it automatically to that default.
To change either of these, use a Terminal command of the form
defaults write [Link]
updateCheckInt '10'
which works properly through the preferences server cfprefsd.
Obtaining updates manually
The Browse updates command in the Help menu opens a page on the
Eclectic Light Company blog listing current versions of apps, from which you can
download updates easily.
Change List
SilentKnight 1.21:
⁃ now tracks and displays the version number of XProtect Remediator in Catalina
and later.
SilentKnight 1.20:
⁃ added support for Ventura.
SilentKnight 1.19:
⁃ added support for checking firmware in Apple Studio Displays
⁃ expanded window to accommodate new display info.
SilentKnight 1.18:
⁃ relegated Gatekeeper to the bottom, and changed reporting for its disuse
⁃ added QoS for background tasks
⁃ changed reporting of M1 results on non-English systems
⁃ minor additional improvements to reporting.
SilentKnight 1.17:
⁃ improved support for unsupported macOS versions
⁃ built for improved compatibility with M1 Pro and M1 Max models
⁃ updated Help files.
SilentKnight 1.16:
⁃ added support for Monterey.
SilentKnight 1.15:
⁃ Now checks the Sealed System Volume in Intel Macs running Big Sur, as well as
Apple Silicon Macs.
SilentKnight 1.14:
⁃ Apple Silicon Macs now first class citizens, with iBoot version checking and
Platform Security details.
SilentKnight 1.13:
⁃ added support for reporting firmware on Apple Silicon Macs.
SilentKnight 1.12:
⁃ added support for downloading but not installing updates.
SilentKnight 1.11:
⁃ added the Install Single Update window and feature.
SilentKnight 1.10:
⁃ additional fixes for Big Sur and sync with silnite.
SilentKnight 1.9:
⁃ full release as a Universal App for all supported versions of macOS including Big
Sur.
SilentKnight 1.8:
⁃ fixes (at last) failure to update version numbers after updates (I hope)
⁃ adds support for macOS Big Sur.
SilentKnight 1.7:
⁃ adds support for not checking for available updates
⁃ improves user feedback when checking for available updates.
SilentKnight 1.6:
⁃ warns over unsupported versions of macOS and firmware updates.
SilentKnight 1.5:
⁃ added support for split Catalina and other firmware versions.
SilentKnight 1.4:
⁃ added support for KEXT exclusion extension in Catalina
⁃ other minor tweaks.
SilentKnight 1.3:
⁃ added support for GKE database in Catalina
⁃ added link to firmware ref v4 for Catalina
⁃ ported to Swift 5.1 in Xcode 11.1.
SilentKnight 1.2:
⁃ added output of expected iBridge version for T2 models.
SilentKnight 1.1:
⁃ changed support for Catalina’s paths
⁃ added server support for Catalnia’s new paths
⁃ updated reference for Catalina beta 4
⁃ increased maximum text size to 60 points
⁃ added macOS version to report.
SilentKnight 1.0:
⁃ created new app, new icon
⁃ tweaked output text
⁃ changed behaviour after update
⁃ thorough update of Help files
⁃ added tooltips.
EFIcienC 1.0b2:
⁃ added security data checks
⁃ added checking for updates
⁃ added installing update
⁃ added export as text
⁃ added reference PDF
⁃ fixed issues with pre-10.14.1 EFI versions.
EFIcienC 1.0b1:
• First test version.
17 June 2
