Table of Contents
Handling physical and virtual media in macOS
Disk image manipulation
Mounting
hdiutil attach Adobe\ Photoshop\ 7\ DE.img
Attach as block device, but don't mount
hdiutil attach -nomount -noverify Downloads/QuickTime_Installer_6.5.1.dmg
Create an image from a folder
hdiutil create -volname $VOLUMENAME -srcfolder $SOURCEFOLDER {-format $IMAGEFORMAT} -fs $FILESYSTEM $FILENAME
Create a Joliet/ISO compatible image from a folder
hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o image.iso /path/to/source
Create an image from a device
hdiutil create -srcdevice /dev/diskN -format $IMAGEFORMAT ImageFromDevice.dmg
== Create an empty raw image (Apple Partition)
hdiutil create -volname Snow\ HD -size 20G -type UDIF -layout SPUD -fs HFS+ Snow.img
Show information on an image
hdiutil imageinfo /Users/wolfo/Downloads/QuickTime\ 6.3.1\ for\ OSX\ 10.1.5\ date\ 20040401.dmg
Compact a sparse image
hdiutil compact Address\ Book\ Backup.sparseimage
Filesystems used by hdiutil
UDF | Universal Disk Format (UDF) |
MS-DOS FAT12 | MS-DOS (FAT12) |
MS-DOS | MS-DOS (FAT) |
MS-DOS FAT16 | MS-DOS (FAT16) |
MS-DOS FAT32 | MS-DOS (FAT32) |
HFS+ | Mac OS Extended |
Case-sensitive HFS+ | Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive) |
Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+ | Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) |
Journaled HFS+ | Mac OS Extended (Journaled) |
ExFAT | ExFAT |
Case-sensitive APFS | APFS (Case-sensitive) |
APFS | APFS |
Partition layouts used by hdiutil
MBRSPUD | Single partition - Master Boot Record Partition Map |
SPUD | Single partition - Apple Partition Map |
UNIVERSAL CD | CD/DVD |
NONE | No partition map |
GPTSPUD | Single partition - GUID Partition Map |
SPCD | Single partition - CD/DVD |
UNIVERSAL HD | Hard disk |
ISOCD | Single partition - CD/DVD with ISO data |
Image formats used by hdiutil
UDRO | read-only |
UDCO | compressed (ADC) |
UDZO | compressed |
UDBZ | compressed (bzip2) |
ULFO | compressed (lzfse) |
ULMO | compressed (lzma) |
UFBI | entire device |
IPOD | iPod image |
UDxx | UDIF stub |
UDSB | sparsebundle |
UDSP | sparse |
UDRW | read/write |
UDTO | DVD/CD master |
DC42 | Disk Copy 4.2 |
RdWr | NDIF read/write |
Rdxx | NDIF read-only |
ROCo | NDIF compressed |
Rken | NDIF compressed (KenCode) |
Manipulation of physical media (diskutil)
Erasing/formatting a disk
diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 VolumeName MBR diskN
Securely erasing a volume
diskutil secureErase 4 diskN
0 | Single-pass zeros. |
1 | Single-pass random numbers. |
2 | US DoD 7-pass secure erase. |
3 | Gutmann algorithm 35-pass secure erase. |
4 | US DoE 3-pass secure erase. |
Zeroing a disk
diskutil zeroDisk /dev/diskN
Randomising a disk
diskutil randomDisk /dev/diskN
Force unmount volume
diskutil unmountDisk force diskX
Encrypted volumes
Change password for encrypted disk image
hdiutil chpass $FILENAME
Optical media
Burn an image to an optical disc
hdiutil burn /Volumes/Downloads/Mac\ OS\ X\ Jaguar/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ Disc\ 1.toast
Erase a rewritable disc
diskutil eraseOptical /dev/disk8