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Administrator Guide 31

Appendix A

About Optional Firmware Password Protection

NOTE: More recent Mac computers do not support Firmware Password Protection. Firmware Password Protection is supported for the

following models:

iMac11.*

Macmini4.*

MacBook7.*

MacBookAir2.*

MacBookPro7.*

MacPro5.*

XServe3.*

For example, iMac11.1 and iMac11.2 will support Optional Firmware Password Protection (as indicated by the *), but iMac12.1 or later

will not.

NOTE: When the FirmwarePasswordMode key option is set to Optional, it only disables client enforcement of firmware password protection.

It does not remove any existing firmware password protection. You can remove any existing firmware password using the Mac OS X

Firmware Password Utility.

If you intend to use Boot Camp (see

How to Enable Mac OS X Boot Camp

for instructions) on encrypted Mac computers,

you must configure the client to not use firmware password protection.

Mac computers use firmware password protection to enhance access security of the computer. On Mac computers, by

default, the protection is turned

OFF

. During client installation, whether a new installation or an upgrade from an earlier

client version, you have the ability to edit the existing

com.dell.ddp.plist

file to allow the

FirmwarePasswordMode

key to be

set to either

Required

Optional

. The

Required

option is the default setting that enforces firmware password protection,

while the

Optional

setting causes the firmware password to not be enforced. Following the installation or upgrade, the

client evaluates the modified installer

com.dell.ddp.plist

file during restart.

NOTE: To prevent users from changing the computer's security posture, the client does not accept changes to the FirmwarePasswordMode

key after installing the client software.



You can change the value of this key after installation or upgrade by initiating a disk decryption process, and then re-enabling

encryption.

If you want Mac OS X firmware password protection to be required, follow normal client installation/upgrade procedures

outlined in

Install/Upgrade Dell Data Protection | Enterprise Edition for Mac