
Show HN: OSX-ISO – Create a bootable ISO of macOS from the installation app file - busterc
https://github.com/busterc/osx-iso
======
beefhash
If you're interested in this, you may also be interested in OSX-KVM[1], which
handles all the steps necessary to create an installation image that works
with qemu/kvm.

[1] [https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM/](https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM/)

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bo0mb
Couldn't you just use createinstallmedia that comes bundled with those
Installers instead of using a 3rd party tool?

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT201372)

~~~
callesgg
it exactly what it does

    
    
        sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume "$build_mount"
    

But it does 2 or 3 more things.

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cjensen
Disk Maker X [1] is a GUI which has been around a long time and does this.
That said, it's closed source which could make a person justifiably twitchy
when manipulating the installer.

[1] [http://diskmakerx.com](http://diskmakerx.com)

~~~
rulusidaze
> closed source

Open the .app in Script Editor. It's pure AppleScript, albeit with some _do
shell script_ s.

------
ilikepi
From the README:

> [...list of macOS installer apps...]

> Mac users can download theses files from the App Store.

This isn't really accurate. It's not possible to find and download macOS
releases older than the current release. The only exception I was able to find
a few months ago is if you've already downloaded them once previously while
signed into the App Store on a different machine. I believe in that case an
old release can be downloaded on a new machine from the Purchased list after
signing in under the same account.

EDIT: formatting; clarification

~~~
initself
I just downloaded El Capitan today from the App Store from the same machine I
installed from.

~~~
djrogers
Yes, releases older than Sierra can still be found if you had previously
downloaded them, but Sierra is gone and presumably High Sierra will be as well
once it’s been replaced.

~~~
miles
How to download macOS Sierra

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT208202)

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-
sierra/id1127487414?ls...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-
sierra/id1127487414?ls=1&mt=12)

------
abrowne
I just run the installer pointed at an external hard drive partition. You can
boot from that and run the OS installers for the same or later versions but
you also have the full OS if needed, including extra apps like Carbon Copy
Cloner or whatever, not just the recovery environment.

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feelin_googley
Would this allow a user to have a "diskless" Mac?

I create bootable media, e.g. USB sticks or SD cards, for PCs and RPis and I
can thus run "diskless"; no disk access is required and the full system fits
in RAM.

I can insert the media into any available PC and use the computer, without
disturbing anything on its HDD.

This can also be very useful for emergencies where a computer with a HDD will
not boot due to some problem with what is on the drive.

Is this flexibilty possible with today's MacIntosh?

~~~
hrrsn
Not quite, this is just creating the installer ISO. However, macOS is
perfectly happy to be installed on an external hard drive or USB drive, and
that can be booted on any Mac that supports the macOS version on the drive.

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maxscam
Does this support non osx hardware like a windows machine?

~~~
busterc
I do not know and I don't have a windows machine to test with. I personally
use the ISO's on my mac with VMWare Fusion. If you discover it does or doesn't
please share.

~~~
hoistbypetard
What's the advantage of ISOs with Fusion? For Fusion, I've always just pointed
the guest's CD drive at the .app bundle and installed that way.

I first needed a script like this one when I moved a couple of mac minis to
ESXi so I could squeeze extra build VMs onto them. The easiest way to get an
image onto ESXi without using a bootp server or something is an iso; it
doesn't handle app bundles the way Fusion does.

------
neals
And then I can run it on a Virtual Box on Windows?

~~~
Synaesthesia
You can but with a bit of hacks, also graphics acceleration probably won’t
work which affects some functionality. Although it’s usable.

------
wl
Code point U+F8FF is in the private use area. It only displays the Apple logo
on Apple devices. Please do not use it on the web.

~~~
chungy
I get the Klingon symbol.

~~~
porfirium
On Windows I get the lowercase eth (ð)

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rulusidaze
It's not clear to me why this was made. We'll ignore the question of why you
would want an ISO (you can write a DMG direct to USB, and Jamf, DeployStudio,
etc, require a PKG...), and move on to optimization.

You can skip a lot of the convert/copy/asr steps by just using the hdiutil
-srcfolder command, targeted to the createinstallmedia DMG, in conjunction
with your target format. (This can be reproduced in Disk Utility as well, by
the way.) As far as I can tell, you need about 3 commands here, and not a 189
line bash program with functions.

As mentioned elsewhere, Disk Maker X is the way to go. Thanks for sharing your
work though, even if it's a bit over-built.

~~~
hoistbypetard
I run build systems as images on an ESXi host which runs on a Mac Mini.

The easiest way to install OS X on ESXi is from an iso. My scripts for
creating these isos are not as nice as this one. (I use ESXi because I find I
can get one or two more build VMs per Mini this way.)

I'd never heard of Disk Maker X before, but at a glance it does not look like
it can emit an iso.

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em3rgent0rdr
I find it a little absurd and obscene that Apple users will have to code free
software projects for the sole purpose of satisfying basic user needs such as
creating a bootable ISO. At some point it makes sense to leave the abusive
relationship with apple and switch to an FOSS OS.

~~~
misnome
I'm curious; what _user_ need is there to create ISO's vs the current way
updates are distributed?

I can think of a small handful of corner cases (making iso's for e.g.
virtualbox, whose OSX support is extremely minimal), but nothing that most
users, or even developers, would run into on a day-to-day basis.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Sometimes you need to do a fresh install of a particular version, eg I had to
install Mavericks for a guy for Pro Tools 11. It’s also a good way to install
onto fresh media or do a clean install, or repair macs.

