Magisk v21 and Magisk Manager 8.0 launch with support for Android 11, UI refresh, plus more

Damien Wilde | Oct 5 2020 - 4:15 am PT

For Android tinkerers and those still entrenched in the “true” customizability of ROMs, there are few root solutions that match Magisk and Magisk Manager. To coincide with the wider rollout of Android 11, Developer topjohnwu has now released Magisk v21 and Magisk Manager 8.0.

Not only do these latest builds come with support for Android 11, but they also include some notable changes and improvements to the user interface, Safe Mode detection, plus a ton of under-the-hood tweaks and enhancements. It’s not exactly smooth sailing for every device out there though, as Magisk v21 has some issues and incompatibility problems with some MediaTek-powered handsets (via XDA-developers).

The latest build was confirmed in a tweet by the man himself @topjohnwu over on Twitter, where he shared the news that Magisk v21.0 is now available but is rolling out first via the public beta channel — and will come down to the stable channel soon:

Long time no see! v21.0 is the largest release in Magisk’s history. It comes with full Android 11 support (tons of stuff had to be rewritten from scratch!), and a completely redesigned Magisk Manager. These are the reasons why this particular public release took me over half a year to wrap up.
To the end user, not much has changed other than the fact that Magisk Manager has completely changed its appearance. However developers should pay some attention to some changes due to adjustments for Android 11. Full changelogs are too massive to fit, so here I’ll point out the main changes and links to updated documentations.

You can check out the full changelog for both updates below:

Magisk v21
[General] Support Android 11
[General] Add Safe Mode detection. Disable all modules when the device is booting into Safe Mode.
[General] Increase post-fs-data mode timeout from 10 seconds to 40 seconds
[MagiskInit] Rewritten 2SI support from scratch
[MagiskInit] Support when no /sbin folder exists (Android 11)
[MagiskInit] Dump fstab from device-tree to rootfs and force init to use it for 2SI devices
[MagiskInit] Strip out AVB for 2SI as it may cause bootloop
[Modules] Rewritten module mounting logic from scratch
[MagiskSU] For Android 8.0+, a completely new policy setup is used. This reduces compromises in Android’s sandbox, providing more policy isolation and better security for root users.
[MagiskSU] Isolated mount namespace will now first inherit from parent process, then isolate itself from the world
[MagiskSU] Update communication protocol with Magisk Manager to work with the hardened SELinux setup
[MagiskPolicy] Optimize match all rules. This will significantly reduce policy binary size and save memory and improve general kernel performance.
[MagiskPolicy] Support declaring new types and attributes
[MagiskPolicy] Make policy statement closer to stock *.te format. Please check updated documentation or magiskpolicy –help for more details.
[MagiskBoot] Support compressed extra blobs
[MagiskBoot] Pad boot images to original size with zeros
[MagiskHide] Manipulate additional vendor properties

Magisk Manager 8.0
100% full app rewrite! Will highlight functional changes below.
Add detailed device info in home screen to assist user installation
Support Magisk v21.0 communication protocol
Support patching modern Samsung AP.tar

If you’re confident enough to install Magisk v21 on your device, then you can get downloading here. You can also download the latest Magisk Manager 8.0 directly here. It’s worth remembering that you will be doing so at your own risk, should you encounter issues, you can always submit a bug or issue from the project’s GitHub repo. This is also a great place to check the compatibility of Magisk v21 and Magisk Manager 8.0 with your devices.