Keymaster: the minion the Gatekeeper's waiting for. The Gatekeeper is considered to be female, the Keymaster male.

Rixstep's Keymaster, at any rate, takes care of Apple's Gatekeeper.

'Gozer the Traveler: he will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large moving Torb. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!'

To the standard documention on the licensed Keymaster, this document prepends information on the free Keymaster Solo. It is the intention of the authors that the 'message' be spread for the good of all.

Operation

Simply launch Keymaster Solo. You'll see a number of standard home area directories listed in the Keymaster Solo window. Tick the directories you wish to protect.

Some directories are disabled. See the section 'AS AN ADDED PRECAUTION' below.

Keep in mind that you should not enable more directories than you need, so as to not unnecessarily consume system resources.

You will by default cleanse files in your target paths of all extended attributes. You can opt to only cleanse Apple quarantines from the Application menu.

You can at any time perform an infection inventory of your selected targets from the File menu.

Click 'Go' to begin protecting. Click 'Stop' at any time to stop protecting.

What follows now is the standard documention on the licensed Keymaster, followed by the original documentation for what became Keymaster Solo.

NEW LICENSED VERSION

The new licensed version of Keymaster is a true Cocoa document-based application. Event streams cost CPU. They're implemented by Apple. So be frugal.

Add paths to a Keymaster document through drag-drop. Doctoring the source code itself is of course possible, but not advised. You may only put directories into a Keymaster list. But, on the other hand, you can put in any directory you want.

Apple's events API makes provisions for paths within paths, so no failsafe code is offered in Keymaster to stop you doing this yourself. You're responsible for the paths you choose.

You can drag between windows, but you can't drop on a Keymaster window that is 'active'. Nor can you copy, cut, paste, or delete with an active window.

Assemble the paths you want to guard. Perhaps save the document so you can get back to it again. Then click 'Go' on the toolbar or on the File menu. Click 'Stop' to stop (pause) the event stream. Should there be a bottleneck in the system so the events driver misses something, stop and immediately restart.

All that's placed in your designated directories will be cleaned and sealed from extended attributes every time something happens there.

THE OLDER 'SOLO' VERSION

The older Keymaster 'solo' version (now freeware) admits of a limited number of directories, all in your home area.

Keymaster fits snugly in your dock. Fire it up, tick off the directories you want it to watch, and then click 'Go'. The button text then changes to 'Stop'. (See an explanation below.)

CAN WE TRUST YOU?

Disclaimer: this thing is powerful. And it does exactly what it says. And it does it fast.

As soon as it detects any changes to any directories in its path, it removes all extended attributes and file flags. From everything.

You are not limited here. That'd be authoritarian and puerile. You have a free rein to shoot yourself in the foot. And more. But don't go shooting yourself in the foot. And, if you do, don't blame us.

This is a powerful and great tool. Don't abuse it - enjoy it instead.

AS AN ADDED PRECAUTION

As an added precaution, we've now put in a 'failsafe': the 'Allowed' key in Info.plist for directories you're OK with guarding.

Note that this key is not part of RxDefaults.

What this means is that you have to consciously and deliberately and with aforethought choose your locations.

All locations are in your home area, in case you were wondering. 'Applications', for example, is your own applications directory and not the one under root.

We recommend being careful (to say the least) with Documents, Library, Music, and Public. For those can contain files whose applications unfortunately are dependent on extended attributes.

And If FSEvents Stumbles?

Things can follow Murphy's Law in complex systems. Should Keymaster not get its events in time, there's no need to panic - just click Keymaster Solo's 'Stop' button and then 'Go'. That should do it.

Keymaster also performs a clean when you first click the 'Go' button.