Disabling kextcache on 10.5.8 and 10.6.3
- by Jeff Kelley
We use Radmind to manage our Mac OS X loadsets and, as such, often run into difficulty when new OS releases come out due to, among other things, updated kernel extensions. The workflow in the past (OS revisions <= 10.4) was to delete the kernel extension cache, update the extensions, and then reboot. That worked just fine, as the system would re-create missing caches on boot. In Leopard, you need to delete the caches after replacing the kernel extensions with their new versions, as the system will automatically start creating them when you replace them; the only way to ensure that you don't have invalid extensions cached is to delete the cache before rebooting.
I'm looking for a way to prevent the kernel extensions cache from being re-created until the next reboot. If you modify the contents of /System/Library/Extensions/, kextcache will start up automatically. I've looked through /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ and other places, but I can't find whatever it is that's starting kextcache. Any ideas?