Mac OS X Server: About Using "systemsetup" to Select a Startup Volume With a Space in Its Name

When using interactive mode, the "systemsetup" command cannot designate a startup volume whose name contains a space. This document explains the alternative.
Symptom

You see a message similar to this one:

In this example, the volume selection attempted was:

/Volumes/Mac OS X Server/System/Library/CoreServices


Solution

To choose a startup volume with a space in its name, you cannot use the interactive mode of the systemsetup command. You must enter the command arguments directly. For the volume "Mac OS X Server" you would type the command this way:

systemsetup -setstartupdisk "/Volumes/Mac OS X Server/System/Library/CoreServices"

For more information on the systemsetup command, see page 600 of the Mac OS X Server Admin Guide for 10.2.3 or later, which you may download from document 120174.

Note: This document discusses only one of several existing methods for changing the startup disk. You may also use the System Preferences application, or you may use the bless command. For an example of the latter, see technical document 107613, "Mac OS X Server 10.2: How to Select a Startup Disk via SSH".
Published Date: Oct 7, 2016