"allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery" - How it works?

Hi, I'm trying to test this restriction on my iPhone. The help doc says

allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery - allows devices to be booted into recovery by an unpaired device

I understand that by default, I shouldn't be able to boot my iPhone into recovery from an unpaired device.

So to test this, I did the following:

  1. Reset the Location and Privacy in my iPhone - so that all previously trusted devices get removed. Now when I connect my iPhone to Mac, it asks whether it should trust this mac and I chose "Don't Trust".
  2. I put my iPhone into recovery mode and connected it to Mac and from the mac, when I click restore/update, the device gets restored.

iPhone version: 14.7.1

Please kindly bear with me. But I can't find any detailed doc explanation anywhere on the internet. A little explanation about what this restriction does and how to observe its behaviour would be of immense help.

Thanks.

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litedev
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The allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery restriction allows/prevents unpaired connected devices from booting devices into recovery mode, but not from recovery mode. This means that connected devices that attempt to cause a device to enter DFU mode from a booted OS won't be able to if the device doesn't trust the connected device and allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery is set to false (which is the default).

Also note that allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery can only be set to true on supervised devices, so unpaired boot to recovery can only occur on those devices that have allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery set to true.

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Systems Engineer
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Hi... I have enabled this restriction in my iPad 16.3 OS. -> Set "allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery" to false As per the restriction , the Device with trust prompt disallowed will not make the connected ipad to enter the Recovery Mode. -> Now I have connected the ipad with this restriction to my mac. It asks for the trust prompt. I have clicked on "Dont trust". So the device and mac is unpaired. Now when i try to make the ipad enter DFU mode by side button and volume buttons, It entered into Recovery mode.

I am confused why this occurred ? May be issue with os or am i the one to do it wrongly. Can you help?

Posted by
MohamedJaffer24
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Same issue happening with iOS 16.3.1.

What I did? I have an iPhone 11 and 2 MacBooks -> Converted the iPhone 11 into supervised device with Apple Configurator -> Still allowUnpairedExternalBootToRecovery is Disabled

-> Took another Mac(2nd Mac) with which the device was not connected previously

-> Connected the iPhone to 2nd Mac.

-> Tried to enter iPhone into recovery mode

-> Mac prompted to trust the device. Granted Trust and I was able to restore the device.

Please note that I didn't trust these Mac from the iPhone. It was only trusted from Mac side and still I was able to recover the iPhone

Posted by
DarshanSavaliya
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