Installation
Where to start
It’s always a good idea to read through, at least, the official Magisk Documentation over on GitHub. Other useful information can often be found in the XDA support thread.Known issues
There may be issues with certain devices, ROMs and/or apps and Magisk. Check the Magisk FAQ for some information about currently known issues.Things to keep handy
There are a couple of things that are good to keep accessible, making it easier to recover from any problems that might arise.- Magisk apk (Get it on GitHub. Never download Magisk files from anywhere else!). If you want a release older than v22.0 you might also want the Magisk zip and uninstaller zip.
- A copy of a clean boot image for your ROM (can be flashed to restore your device in case of problems). Most of the time uninstalling through the app or renaming the apk to uninstall.zip and flashing in recovery is enough, but just in case. Disabling Magisk by flashing an untouched boot image will also keep the Magisk image intact. If you don't know how to get an untouched boot image for your device, your best bet is to search through your device's forum. The Magisk installation script will put a packed up backup of your boot image in /data/magisk_backup_<sha1 checksum> before patching it. This can also be used.
- A copy of your device's boot image patched with the latest working Magisk on your setup. That way you can always revert to a known working state if things go wrong during an update.
- This should go without saying, but a backup of any important data on your device. When tinkering with your device like this it's not a matter of if things go wrong, it's a matter of when...
- Module zips.
Installation
Installing Magisk is usually quite straightforward, but make sure to follow the installation instructions in the official Magisk Documentation. After you've got Magisk installed you can install Magisk Modules through the app or via a custom recovery (e.g. TWRP).Since Google and different OEMs are changing things a lot starting from Android Pie, there are popping up more and more limitations for installing and running Magisk. Make sure to take a look at the docs to see if there's any specific instructions that apply to your device.
Note! On A/B devices it is a good idea to not install TWRP, but only boot it through fastboot:
fastboot boot twrp.img
Actually installing TWRP may lead to issues booting the device if you also install Magisk, since the recovery resides in the boot image.
Advanced Settings/Install options
From Magisk app v8.0.0 these options will only be available on supported legacy devices. For most modern devices they simply won't show, since they have the possibility of causing way more issues for the general user than it's worth. The tools are still available for advanced users and developers in magiskboot.If you do not see these options, it usually means that you do not need them. If you still do, for whatever reason, there are other options to reach the same functionality (Zackptg5's universal disabler is a prime example). Just not through the Magisk app.
Preserve AVB 2.0/dm-verity
This is used to disable or preserve Android Verified Boot on your device. Dm-verity is used by the system to ensure that the device hasn't been tampered with in and let's the user know if this is the case. Since we do want to tamper with the system, most devices want to disable this when installing Magisk. But, there are those devices that need it to still be enabled or they won't boot. See "Working with dm-verity and forced encryption" for more details.Preserve enforced encryption
By default, Android encrypts user data and the kernel enforces this state so that you cannot use your device without encryption. Some user do want to disable encryption on their devices, and if so they need to have this option disabled. See "Working with dm-verity and forced encryption" for more details.Recovery mode
What is this "Recovery mode" that I see in the Magisk app?Recovery mode needs to be enabled if you are installing Magisk on a device that doesn't have ramdisk in the boot partition. On these devices you need to install Magisk into the recovery image rather than the boot image, hence "Recovery mode". For details, see the official installation instructions in the Magisk documentation linked above.
Note though, that since Android is such a fractured ecosystem, detection of the ramdisk might not always be accurate (Xiaomi). So, if the result in the Magisk app is "no ramdisk", but patching the recovery image fails, give the boot image a go instead.
If you're using an older version of the app (that's not something that'll be supported, of course) that doesn't show if there's a ramdisk present, you can go by the general rule that a system-as-root device that doesn't have an A/B setup likely will have to install Magisk to recovery.
