Disk Arbitration

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Provide mechanisms for registering for mount/unmount notification and blocking mount/unmount events using Disk Arbitration.

Posts under Disk Arbitration tag

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Can FSClient.mountSingleVolume be used for block devices?
Can the new FSClient.mountSingleVolume along with the com.apple.developer.fskit.mount entitlement be used to mount a block device resource from a sandboxed GUI app? I ask since FSBlockDeviceResource doesn’t seem to have a public initializer other than init(coder:) and using Disk Arbitration (e.g. DADiskMount or DADiskMountWithArguments) has been finicky with the App Sandbox (FB16728800). I'm interested in making an easy workaround e.g. for users who have an internal partition supported by my file system extension that isn't automounting (FB21729650).
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164
2w
Sandboxed applications fail to mount NFS using NetFSMountURLSync
Mounting NFS to the application's own container directory using NetFSMountURLSync failed. Mounted to /Users/li/Library/Containers/com.xxxxx.navm.MyNavm/Data/Documents/NFSMount Do sandbox applications not allow mounting NFS cloud storage? code: // 1. NFS 服务器 URL(指定 NFSv3) let urlString = "nfs://192.168.64.4/seaweed?vers=3&resvport&nolocks&locallocks&soft&intr&timeo=600" guard let nfsURL = URL(string: urlString) else { os_log("❌ 无效的 URL: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .error, urlString) return } // 2. 挂载点(必须在沙盒容器内) let fileManager = FileManager.default guard let documentsURL = fileManager.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask).first else { os_log("❌ 无法获取 Documents 目录", log: netfsLog, type: .error) return } let mountPointURL = documentsURL.appendingPathComponent("NFSMount", isDirectory: true) // 创建挂载点目录 do { try fileManager.createDirectory(at: mountPointURL, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil) os_log("✅ 挂载点目录已准备: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .info, mountPointURL.path) } catch { os_log("❌ 创建挂载点目录失败: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .error, error.localizedDescription) return } // 3. 挂载选项(使用 NSMutableDictionary 以匹配 CFMutableDictionary) let mountOptions = NSMutableDictionary() // 如果需要,可以添加选项,例如: // mountOptions[kNetFSNoUserAuthenticationKey as String] = true // 4. 调用 NetFSMountURLSync var mountPoints: Unmanaged<CFArray>? = nil let status = NetFSMountURLSync( nfsURL as CFURL, mountPointURL as CFURL, nil, // user nil, // password nil, // open_options mountOptions, // 直接传递 NSMutableDictionary,自动桥接为 CFMutableDictionary &mountPoints ) log: 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:cache] REMOVE: (kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, <Credential (0x7ed0b4230) | Audit Token, 42834.109774/501>) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656702+0800 0x2de8d8 Info 0x867e9d 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:cache] SET: (kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, <Credential (0x7ed0b4230) | Audit Token, 42834.109774/501>) -> <Authorization Record (0x7ecca8180) | Service: kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, AuthRight: Unknown, Reason: None, Version: 1, Session pid: 42832, Session pid version: 109769, Boot UUID: 7DDB03FC-132C-4E56-BA65-5C858D2CC8DD, > 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656753+0800 0x2de8d8 Default 0x867e9d 408 0 sandboxd: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x7ecc88640] invalidated after the last release of the connection object 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656772+0800 0x2de8d8 Debug 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:access] disposing: 0x7ecc3aa80(OS_tcc_message_options) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656779+0800 0x2de8d8 Debug 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:access] disposing: 0x7ecc44820(OS_tcc_server) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656788+0800 0x2de8d8 Info 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: [com.apple.sandbox:sandcastle] kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData would require prompt by TCC for mount_nfs
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808
Mar ’26
After using the fskit framework to mount thecloud disk, it does not display on the Finder sidebar
I developed a cloud drive using fskit, but after mounting it, it did not appear in the Finder sidebar and the disk tool could not list it. How should I adapt? The mounting looks successful, and you can also open and see the fixed files I wrote in the code. I have also turned on the Finder sidebar settings function
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272
Mar ’26
How to prevent the popup "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" from appearing?
Hello! We develop a SAS driver and a service application for DAS devices. When users in our application create a RAID array on the device: On the 1st step, our dext driver mounts a new volume. At this step DiskUtil automatically tries to mount it. As there is no file system on the new volume - the MacOS system popup appears "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" On the 2nd step our application creates the file system on this new volume. So we do not need this MacOS system popup to appear (as it may frustrate our users). We found a way to disable the global auto mount but this solution also impacts on other devices (which is not good). Are there any other possibilities to prevent the popup "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" from appearing?
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712
Jan ’26
How to detect an auto-mounting directory and wait for it to get mounted?
I need to detect the triggering of an auto-mount operation when accessing the path to a formerly unknown mount point at the file system (BSD, POSIX, NSURL) level, and how to wait for it to finish the operation. Network shares can have sub-volumes on them Consider a Windows server. Let's say there's a SMB sharepoint at C:\Shared. It has some folders, one of which is at C:\Shared\More. Furthermore, there's another partition (volume) on the PC, which is mounted at C:\Shared\More\OtherVol. If you mount the initial share on a Mac with a recent macOS, macOS initially only sees a single mount point at /Volumes/Shared, which can be checked with the "mount" command. Now, if you use Finder to dive into the Shared/More folder, Finder will trigger an auto-mount action on the containing OtherVol folder, and after that, the "mount" command will list two mount points from this server, the second being at /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol. (This was a bit surprising to me - I'd have thought that Windows or SMB would hide the fact that the share has sub-volumes, and simply show them as directories - and that's what it did in older macOS versions indeed, e.g. in High Sierra. But in Sequoia, these sub-volumes on the Windows side are mirrored on the Mac side, and they behave accordingly) Browse the volume, including its sub-volumes Now, I have a program that tries to dive into all the folders of this Shared volume, even if it was just freshly mounted and there's no mountpoint at /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol known yet (i.e. the user didn't use Finder to explore it). This means, that if my program, e.g. using a simple recursive directory scan, reaches /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol, the item will not appear as a volume but as an empty folder. E.g, if I get the NSURLIsVolumeKey value, it'll be false. Only once I try to enter the empty dir, listing its contents, which will return no items, an auto-mount action will get triggered, which will add the mountpoint at the path. So, in order to browse the actual contents of the OtherVol directory, I'd have to detect this auto-mount operation somehow, wait for it to finish mounting, and then re-enter the same directory so that I now see the mounted content. How do I do that? I.e. how do I tell that a dir is actually a auto-mount point and how do I wait for it to get auto-mounted before I continue to browse its contents? Note that newer macOS versions do not use fstab any more, so that's of no help here. Can the DA API help? Do I need to use the old Disk Arbitration functions for this, somehow? I have used the DA framework in the part to prevent auto-mounting, so I imagine I could hook into that handler, and if I get a callback for a mount operation, I could then queue the newly mounted volume for scanning. The problem, however, is that my scanning code may, having only seen an empty directory at the not-yet-mounted mountpoint, already decided that there's nothing there and finished its operation. I'd need some reliable method that lets my recursive scanning code know whether an auto-mount has been triggered and it therefore needs to wait for the DA callback. So, is there some signal that will let me know IMMEDIATELY after entering the empty mountpoint directory that an auto-mount op is on the way? Because I suspect that the DA callbacks come with a delay, and therefore would come too late if I used that as the notifier that I have to wait.
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725
Nov ’25
Privileged Helper is denied permission to open raw device
Hello, appreciate any help here. Objective: perform a scoped write to a removable block device (using low-level system frameworks in C). Issue: launchd-run privileged helper (as root) denied permission to open block device. Manual 'sudo ./helper' call succeeds, however. Importantly: the entire process works flawlessly if the main app is granted Full Disk Access in Privacy & Security. However, this should be completely unnecessary for this objective, as scoped access should be sufficient, and FDA is in fact not required for other apps which perform this task. Architecture and flow: Main GUI process collects ISO path and target removable device path (queried via IOKit). Main GUI process installs a Privileged Helper via SMJobBless. The Privileged Helper is started on demand by launchd as root (UID 0, EUID 0). Main GUI process communicates selected ISO and device paths to Privileged Helper via XPC. Privileged Helper conducts security and sanity checks, unmounts volumes from target device via DiskArbitration. Privileged Helper obtains file handles to ISO and target block device (e.g.: "/dev/disk4"). Privileged Helper performs a byte-by-byte write to the target block device. Problematic area: Simplified example using C syscalls (via Zig): const path = "/dev/disk5"; // Note that even with readonly flag this fails const fd = c.open(path, c.O_RDONLY, @as(c_uint, 0)); defer _ = c.close(fd); if (fd < 0) { const err_num = c.__error().*; const err_str = c.strerror(err_num); log("open() failed with errno {}: {s}", .{ err_num, err_str }); } Output (when run by launchd - UID 0, EUID 0, domain: system): open() failed with errno 1: Operation not permitted Simplified example with Zig open interface: const directory = try std.fs.openDirAbsolute(deviceDir, .{ .no_follow = true }); const device = try directory.openFile("/dev/disk5", .{ .mode = .read_write, .lock = .exclusive }); errdefer device.close(); Output (when run by launchd - UID 0, EUID 0, domain: system): Error: error.AccessDenied Running the same examples by manually launching the binary with a test argument succeeds: sudo ./helper "/dev/disk5" ... Notable points: Both Main GUI process and the Privileged Helper binary are codesigned (via codesign ...). Privileged Helper has both Info.plist and Launchd.plist symbols exported into its binary. Privileged Helper has no codesign flags (e.g.: for hardened runtime or others): CodeDirectory v=20400 size=8130 flags=0x0(none) hashes=248+2 location=embedded Output of sudo launchctl print system/<helper-bundle-id> shows nothing of interest to indicate any security restrictions. Appreciate any advice here!
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Oct ’25
FSKit volume mount fails with "Permission denied"
I'm trying to use FSKit to create a File System Extension that can read MFS-formatted disk images, following the old MFSLives sample project for reference. I have a well-formed MFS formatted img file that I'm trying to mount, but I'm having trouble getting the system to actually use my FSModule. DiskImageMounter fails to mount the img file, but I'm able to use it to attach the image as a device by clicking "Ignore" when it prompts me that it isn't able to read the disk. This is effectively the same as using the hdiutil command in Terminal. hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount Sample.img I've read that FSKit isn't fully integrated with Disk Arbitration yet, so I decided to see if I could force the system to use my extension by using the mount command. mkdir /tmp/Sample mount -F -t MFS disk54 /tmp/Sample Watching the logs in Console, I can see that fskit_agent sees my extension in its "New Modules List", and I see an MFS process gets launched and logs messages from com.apple.running and com.apple.xpc. However, the logs from the MFS process end there, and don't include any of my debug logs, which should be posted when my FSFileSystem subclass is created or when probeResource is called. Ultimately the mount command fails with exit code 69 and prints the following error message: mount: Probing resource: The operation couldn’t be completed. Permission denied mount: Unable to invoke task I've checked everything I could think of: The extension is enabled in System Settings. The extension has the FSKit Module capability added in Xcode. The Info.plist sets the FSSupportsBlockResources key to YES. The Info.plist sets both the FSName and FSShortName keys to MFS. The extension has its Team set to my developer account, with Xcode setting the Provisioning Profile and Signing Certificate automatically. The hosting app has its Team set to my developer account with the "Development" signing certificate. I wanted to see if it was something with my project configuration or implementation, so I downloaded the KhaosT/FSKitSample project from GitHub. Once I got that building, I tried mounting a disk image using the MyFS extesnion, but my system wouldn't run that either. Is there something about the system configuration I should be aware of to enable File System Extensions? I have my MFS extension showing up and enabled, but I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing that I still have to do. Is there a capability or signing requirement I didn't list that's required for the extension to run? The documentation doesn't specify anything about the entitlements, signing capabilities, or Info.plist keys, so I'm not sure what I should be looking for. I'm running macOS Sequoia 15.6.1 on an M2 Max MacBook Pro, and I'm building my project with Xcode 26 beta 6.
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Sep ’25
Mounting FSKit with FSPathURLResource programatically in MacOS 26
Hi, I'm trying to mount my FSKit volume with a client app (SwiftUI). I already successfully did it with the "mount" command and I can instantiate my file-system with FSPathURLResource. Also, I managed to mount the file-system with DiskArbitration in a SwiftUI app, but I only managed to get it working with FSBlockDeviceResource. Is there a way to programmatically do it in a client app? Or is "mount" command currently the only option?
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511
Sep ’25
Mount an FSKit volume
Hello, I'm playing around with the FSKit API and I'm looking for programmatic ways to mount a file system backed by an FSKit extension. Currently, I could only find the new -F option in the mount command but I would prefer if I could avoid executing comman line tools. I checked the DiskArbitration framework but couldn't find anything specific for FSKit there. Thanks
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555
Aug ’25
WebDAV mount fails over IPv6 using Finder and NetFSMountURLSync (GetServerInfo error 5)
I attempted to mount a WebDAV server on macOS using Finder. The mount was successful when using the server's IPv4 address or hostname, but failed when using its IPv6 address. I also tested the mount using the NetFS framework API via NetFSMountURLSync. The results were consistent: the mount succeeded with the IPv4 address and hostname but failed when using the IPv6 address. While observing live logs via Console.app, I saw that the process NetAuthSysAgent produced the following error during the IPv6 mount attempt: GetServerInfo failed with error 5
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171
Jul ’25
C program posix_spawn diskutil fails with error -69877
Hello, I am programming a CLI tool to partition USB disks. I am calling diskutil to do the work, but I am hitting issues with permissions, it seems. Here is a trial run of the same command running diskutil directly on the terminal vs running from my code: Calling diskutil directly (works as expected) % /usr/sbin/diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 MBR Free\ Space gap 2048S fat32 f-fix 100353S Free\ Space tail 0 Started partitioning on disk2 Unmounting disk Creating the partition map Waiting for partitions to activate Formatting disk2s1 as MS-DOS (FAT32) with name f-fix 512 bytes per physical sector /dev/rdisk2s1: 98784 sectors in 98784 FAT32 clusters (512 bytes/cluster) bps=512 spc=1 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf8 spt=32 hds=16 hid=2079 drv=0x80 bsec=100360 bspf=772 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=6 Mounting disk Finished partitioning on disk2 /dev/disk2 (disk image): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: FDisk_partition_scheme +104.9 MB disk2 1: DOS_FAT_32 F-FIX 51.4 MB disk2s1 Calling diskutil programmatically (error -69877) % sudo ./f-fix DEBUG: /usr/sbin/diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 MBR Free Space gap 2048S fat32 f-fix 100353S Free Space tail 0 Started partitioning on disk2 Unmounting disk Error: -69877: Couldn't open device (Is a disk in use by a storage system such as AppleRAID, CoreStorage, or APFS?) Failed to fix drive `/dev/disk2' Source Code The relevant code from my program is this: char *args[16]; int n = 0; args[n++] = "/usr/sbin/diskutil"; args[n++] = "partitionDisk"; args[n++] = (char *)disk; args[n++] = (char *)scheme; (...) args[n++] = NULL; char **parent_env = *_NSGetEnviron(); if (posix_spawnp(&pid, args[0], NULL, NULL, args, parent_env) != 0) return 1; if (waitpid(pid, &status, 0) < 0) return 1; return 0; Question Are there any system protections against running it like so? What could I be missing? Is this a Disk Arbitration issue?
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320
May ’25
Mounting an external disk from a sandboxed app
I’m attempting to make an app that uses Disk Arbitration to intercept a disk mount (by creating and returning a dissenter in the appropriate callback) and then mount the disk with certain options (specifically, read-only, nobrowse, or both, depending on user options). For example: DADiskMountWithArguments(disk, nil, DADiskMountOptions(kDADiskMountOptionDefault), nil, nil, kReadOnly) …where kReadOnly is a pointer to an array only containing a “rdonly” CFString. While DADiskMountWithArguments seems to be usable in a sandboxed app for disk images, it doesn’t work when the disk is an external disk (e.g. connected via USB). I see lines like this in Console.app when this happens: Sandbox denied authorizing right 'system.volume.external.mount' by client '/path/to/exe' [17934] (engine 580) I’ve identified two workarounds that allow this to work in a sandbox, but both have their own problems: If a LaunchDaemon (even a sandboxed one, which is required for registration with SMAppService.daemon from the sandboxed app) does the call to DADiskMountWithArguments, it will succeed. But App Store policies don’t allow escalation to root. If I use the undocumented entitlement com.apple.security.temporary-exception.sbpl with a value of (allow authorization-right-obtain (right-name "system.volume.external.mount")), the mount works without escalation to root. But I understand that App Review is likely to reject the use of this entitlement, and that this entitlement isn't supported to begin with. Specifically, these are the behaviors I see on macOS Sequoia 15.3.1 and Xcode 16.2. Since I would like to try to publish this app on the App Store, neither of these seem like acceptable solutions. I don’t see why this should be restricted if the sandboxed app is not declaring a special path (i.e. the path in DADiskMountWithArguments is set to nil) and still does not have access to the mounted filesystem - am I missing something/is there a way to accomplish this?
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702
Mar ’25
Access NVMe SMART on iPad
When using external NVMe devices on iOS / iPadOS I cannot tell how to access the disk SMART data. On macOS I can use NVMeSMARTLibExternal.h to access this information but the same system does not seem to work on iPadOS (even with Thunderbolt NVMe devices). When using M series iPads with professional Thunderbolt storage this woudlbe very useful.
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1k
Jul ’24
Is there a more modern API than Disk Arbitration to know when a volume has been mounted?
There seems to be at least 3 possible APIs to detect the mounting of a volume on macOS: Endpoint Security APIs through the NOTIFY_MOUNT event. Disk Arbitration NSWorkspace notifications. If we omit NSWorkspace for different reasons (headless, background context), this leaves only 2 choices. From what I'm reading and understanding, the NOTIFY_MOUNT event is just telling that a volume is being mounted. It does not guarantee that the volume is mounted at the time of the event. So this seems to leave only Disk Arbitration. Since the Disk Arbitration API has been there for a long time, the question is: Is there a more modern API than Disk Arbitration to know when a volume has been mounted?
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769
Nov ’23
Programmatically recognize a disk image mounted from which dmg file
hdiutil command line could get a list of disk images, may I ask if there is any API performing the same? thank you. liz@macos-12 ~ % hdiutil info framework : 623.100.1 driver : 623.100.1 ================================================ image-path : /Users/liz/Downloads/Skype-8.90.0.407.dmg image-alias : /Users/liz/Downloads/Skype-8.90.0.407.dmg shadow-path : <none> icon-path : <none> image-type : read-only disk image system-image : false blockcount : 2048080 blocksize : 512 writeable : false autodiskmount : TRUE removable : TRUE image-encrypted : false mounting user : liz mounting mode : <unknown> process ID : 20600 framework name : DiskImages2 /dev/disk2 GUID_partition_scheme /dev/disk2s1 <GUID> /Volumes/Skype
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1.2k
Dec ’22
[DiskArbitration] Is it possible to get the state of a Session?
It does not seem to be documented but, according to the DiskArbitration source code from Darwin, if an approval callback does not return after 10 seconds, the session state is set to timeout and further approval callbacks are never called anymore. Based on the source code, it does not seem possible but as I may be missing something: [Q] Is there a way to get/set the state of a DASessionRef or DAApprovalSessionRef? Would there be some kind of notification mechanism to be informed that a session has been set as timed out?
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994
Sep ’22
Can FSClient.mountSingleVolume be used for block devices?
Can the new FSClient.mountSingleVolume along with the com.apple.developer.fskit.mount entitlement be used to mount a block device resource from a sandboxed GUI app? I ask since FSBlockDeviceResource doesn’t seem to have a public initializer other than init(coder:) and using Disk Arbitration (e.g. DADiskMount or DADiskMountWithArguments) has been finicky with the App Sandbox (FB16728800). I'm interested in making an easy workaround e.g. for users who have an internal partition supported by my file system extension that isn't automounting (FB21729650).
Replies
3
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164
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2w
Sandboxed applications fail to mount NFS using NetFSMountURLSync
Mounting NFS to the application's own container directory using NetFSMountURLSync failed. Mounted to /Users/li/Library/Containers/com.xxxxx.navm.MyNavm/Data/Documents/NFSMount Do sandbox applications not allow mounting NFS cloud storage? code: // 1. NFS 服务器 URL(指定 NFSv3) let urlString = "nfs://192.168.64.4/seaweed?vers=3&resvport&nolocks&locallocks&soft&intr&timeo=600" guard let nfsURL = URL(string: urlString) else { os_log("❌ 无效的 URL: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .error, urlString) return } // 2. 挂载点(必须在沙盒容器内) let fileManager = FileManager.default guard let documentsURL = fileManager.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask).first else { os_log("❌ 无法获取 Documents 目录", log: netfsLog, type: .error) return } let mountPointURL = documentsURL.appendingPathComponent("NFSMount", isDirectory: true) // 创建挂载点目录 do { try fileManager.createDirectory(at: mountPointURL, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil) os_log("✅ 挂载点目录已准备: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .info, mountPointURL.path) } catch { os_log("❌ 创建挂载点目录失败: %@", log: netfsLog, type: .error, error.localizedDescription) return } // 3. 挂载选项(使用 NSMutableDictionary 以匹配 CFMutableDictionary) let mountOptions = NSMutableDictionary() // 如果需要,可以添加选项,例如: // mountOptions[kNetFSNoUserAuthenticationKey as String] = true // 4. 调用 NetFSMountURLSync var mountPoints: Unmanaged<CFArray>? = nil let status = NetFSMountURLSync( nfsURL as CFURL, mountPointURL as CFURL, nil, // user nil, // password nil, // open_options mountOptions, // 直接传递 NSMutableDictionary,自动桥接为 CFMutableDictionary &mountPoints ) log: 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:cache] REMOVE: (kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, <Credential (0x7ed0b4230) | Audit Token, 42834.109774/501>) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656702+0800 0x2de8d8 Info 0x867e9d 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:cache] SET: (kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, <Credential (0x7ed0b4230) | Audit Token, 42834.109774/501>) -> <Authorization Record (0x7ecca8180) | Service: kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData, AuthRight: Unknown, Reason: None, Version: 1, Session pid: 42832, Session pid version: 109769, Boot UUID: 7DDB03FC-132C-4E56-BA65-5C858D2CC8DD, > 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656753+0800 0x2de8d8 Default 0x867e9d 408 0 sandboxd: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x7ecc88640] invalidated after the last release of the connection object 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656772+0800 0x2de8d8 Debug 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:access] disposing: 0x7ecc3aa80(OS_tcc_message_options) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656779+0800 0x2de8d8 Debug 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: (TCC) [com.apple.TCC:access] disposing: 0x7ecc44820(OS_tcc_server) 2026-03-03 21:38:27.656788+0800 0x2de8d8 Info 0x867e9b 408 0 sandboxd: [com.apple.sandbox:sandcastle] kTCCServiceSystemPolicyAppData would require prompt by TCC for mount_nfs
Replies
4
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0
Views
808
Activity
Mar ’26
After using the fskit framework to mount thecloud disk, it does not display on the Finder sidebar
I developed a cloud drive using fskit, but after mounting it, it did not appear in the Finder sidebar and the disk tool could not list it. How should I adapt? The mounting looks successful, and you can also open and see the fixed files I wrote in the code. I have also turned on the Finder sidebar settings function
Replies
6
Boosts
0
Views
272
Activity
Mar ’26
How to prevent the popup "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" from appearing?
Hello! We develop a SAS driver and a service application for DAS devices. When users in our application create a RAID array on the device: On the 1st step, our dext driver mounts a new volume. At this step DiskUtil automatically tries to mount it. As there is no file system on the new volume - the MacOS system popup appears "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" On the 2nd step our application creates the file system on this new volume. So we do not need this MacOS system popup to appear (as it may frustrate our users). We found a way to disable the global auto mount but this solution also impacts on other devices (which is not good). Are there any other possibilities to prevent the popup "The disk you attached was not readable by the computer" from appearing?
Replies
3
Boosts
0
Views
712
Activity
Jan ’26
How to detect an auto-mounting directory and wait for it to get mounted?
I need to detect the triggering of an auto-mount operation when accessing the path to a formerly unknown mount point at the file system (BSD, POSIX, NSURL) level, and how to wait for it to finish the operation. Network shares can have sub-volumes on them Consider a Windows server. Let's say there's a SMB sharepoint at C:\Shared. It has some folders, one of which is at C:\Shared\More. Furthermore, there's another partition (volume) on the PC, which is mounted at C:\Shared\More\OtherVol. If you mount the initial share on a Mac with a recent macOS, macOS initially only sees a single mount point at /Volumes/Shared, which can be checked with the "mount" command. Now, if you use Finder to dive into the Shared/More folder, Finder will trigger an auto-mount action on the containing OtherVol folder, and after that, the "mount" command will list two mount points from this server, the second being at /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol. (This was a bit surprising to me - I'd have thought that Windows or SMB would hide the fact that the share has sub-volumes, and simply show them as directories - and that's what it did in older macOS versions indeed, e.g. in High Sierra. But in Sequoia, these sub-volumes on the Windows side are mirrored on the Mac side, and they behave accordingly) Browse the volume, including its sub-volumes Now, I have a program that tries to dive into all the folders of this Shared volume, even if it was just freshly mounted and there's no mountpoint at /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol known yet (i.e. the user didn't use Finder to explore it). This means, that if my program, e.g. using a simple recursive directory scan, reaches /Volumes/Shared/More/OtherVol, the item will not appear as a volume but as an empty folder. E.g, if I get the NSURLIsVolumeKey value, it'll be false. Only once I try to enter the empty dir, listing its contents, which will return no items, an auto-mount action will get triggered, which will add the mountpoint at the path. So, in order to browse the actual contents of the OtherVol directory, I'd have to detect this auto-mount operation somehow, wait for it to finish mounting, and then re-enter the same directory so that I now see the mounted content. How do I do that? I.e. how do I tell that a dir is actually a auto-mount point and how do I wait for it to get auto-mounted before I continue to browse its contents? Note that newer macOS versions do not use fstab any more, so that's of no help here. Can the DA API help? Do I need to use the old Disk Arbitration functions for this, somehow? I have used the DA framework in the part to prevent auto-mounting, so I imagine I could hook into that handler, and if I get a callback for a mount operation, I could then queue the newly mounted volume for scanning. The problem, however, is that my scanning code may, having only seen an empty directory at the not-yet-mounted mountpoint, already decided that there's nothing there and finished its operation. I'd need some reliable method that lets my recursive scanning code know whether an auto-mount has been triggered and it therefore needs to wait for the DA callback. So, is there some signal that will let me know IMMEDIATELY after entering the empty mountpoint directory that an auto-mount op is on the way? Because I suspect that the DA callbacks come with a delay, and therefore would come too late if I used that as the notifier that I have to wait.
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11
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725
Activity
Nov ’25
Privileged Helper is denied permission to open raw device
Hello, appreciate any help here. Objective: perform a scoped write to a removable block device (using low-level system frameworks in C). Issue: launchd-run privileged helper (as root) denied permission to open block device. Manual 'sudo ./helper' call succeeds, however. Importantly: the entire process works flawlessly if the main app is granted Full Disk Access in Privacy & Security. However, this should be completely unnecessary for this objective, as scoped access should be sufficient, and FDA is in fact not required for other apps which perform this task. Architecture and flow: Main GUI process collects ISO path and target removable device path (queried via IOKit). Main GUI process installs a Privileged Helper via SMJobBless. The Privileged Helper is started on demand by launchd as root (UID 0, EUID 0). Main GUI process communicates selected ISO and device paths to Privileged Helper via XPC. Privileged Helper conducts security and sanity checks, unmounts volumes from target device via DiskArbitration. Privileged Helper obtains file handles to ISO and target block device (e.g.: "/dev/disk4"). Privileged Helper performs a byte-by-byte write to the target block device. Problematic area: Simplified example using C syscalls (via Zig): const path = "/dev/disk5"; // Note that even with readonly flag this fails const fd = c.open(path, c.O_RDONLY, @as(c_uint, 0)); defer _ = c.close(fd); if (fd < 0) { const err_num = c.__error().*; const err_str = c.strerror(err_num); log("open() failed with errno {}: {s}", .{ err_num, err_str }); } Output (when run by launchd - UID 0, EUID 0, domain: system): open() failed with errno 1: Operation not permitted Simplified example with Zig open interface: const directory = try std.fs.openDirAbsolute(deviceDir, .{ .no_follow = true }); const device = try directory.openFile("/dev/disk5", .{ .mode = .read_write, .lock = .exclusive }); errdefer device.close(); Output (when run by launchd - UID 0, EUID 0, domain: system): Error: error.AccessDenied Running the same examples by manually launching the binary with a test argument succeeds: sudo ./helper "/dev/disk5" ... Notable points: Both Main GUI process and the Privileged Helper binary are codesigned (via codesign ...). Privileged Helper has both Info.plist and Launchd.plist symbols exported into its binary. Privileged Helper has no codesign flags (e.g.: for hardened runtime or others): CodeDirectory v=20400 size=8130 flags=0x0(none) hashes=248+2 location=embedded Output of sudo launchctl print system/<helper-bundle-id> shows nothing of interest to indicate any security restrictions. Appreciate any advice here!
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2
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401
Activity
Oct ’25
FSKit volume mount fails with "Permission denied"
I'm trying to use FSKit to create a File System Extension that can read MFS-formatted disk images, following the old MFSLives sample project for reference. I have a well-formed MFS formatted img file that I'm trying to mount, but I'm having trouble getting the system to actually use my FSModule. DiskImageMounter fails to mount the img file, but I'm able to use it to attach the image as a device by clicking "Ignore" when it prompts me that it isn't able to read the disk. This is effectively the same as using the hdiutil command in Terminal. hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount Sample.img I've read that FSKit isn't fully integrated with Disk Arbitration yet, so I decided to see if I could force the system to use my extension by using the mount command. mkdir /tmp/Sample mount -F -t MFS disk54 /tmp/Sample Watching the logs in Console, I can see that fskit_agent sees my extension in its "New Modules List", and I see an MFS process gets launched and logs messages from com.apple.running and com.apple.xpc. However, the logs from the MFS process end there, and don't include any of my debug logs, which should be posted when my FSFileSystem subclass is created or when probeResource is called. Ultimately the mount command fails with exit code 69 and prints the following error message: mount: Probing resource: The operation couldn’t be completed. Permission denied mount: Unable to invoke task I've checked everything I could think of: The extension is enabled in System Settings. The extension has the FSKit Module capability added in Xcode. The Info.plist sets the FSSupportsBlockResources key to YES. The Info.plist sets both the FSName and FSShortName keys to MFS. The extension has its Team set to my developer account, with Xcode setting the Provisioning Profile and Signing Certificate automatically. The hosting app has its Team set to my developer account with the "Development" signing certificate. I wanted to see if it was something with my project configuration or implementation, so I downloaded the KhaosT/FSKitSample project from GitHub. Once I got that building, I tried mounting a disk image using the MyFS extesnion, but my system wouldn't run that either. Is there something about the system configuration I should be aware of to enable File System Extensions? I have my MFS extension showing up and enabled, but I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing that I still have to do. Is there a capability or signing requirement I didn't list that's required for the extension to run? The documentation doesn't specify anything about the entitlements, signing capabilities, or Info.plist keys, so I'm not sure what I should be looking for. I'm running macOS Sequoia 15.6.1 on an M2 Max MacBook Pro, and I'm building my project with Xcode 26 beta 6.
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561
Activity
Sep ’25
Mounting FSKit with FSPathURLResource programatically in MacOS 26
Hi, I'm trying to mount my FSKit volume with a client app (SwiftUI). I already successfully did it with the "mount" command and I can instantiate my file-system with FSPathURLResource. Also, I managed to mount the file-system with DiskArbitration in a SwiftUI app, but I only managed to get it working with FSBlockDeviceResource. Is there a way to programmatically do it in a client app? Or is "mount" command currently the only option?
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6
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511
Activity
Sep ’25
Mount an FSKit volume
Hello, I'm playing around with the FSKit API and I'm looking for programmatic ways to mount a file system backed by an FSKit extension. Currently, I could only find the new -F option in the mount command but I would prefer if I could avoid executing comman line tools. I checked the DiskArbitration framework but couldn't find anything specific for FSKit there. Thanks
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555
Activity
Aug ’25
WebDAV mount fails over IPv6 using Finder and NetFSMountURLSync (GetServerInfo error 5)
I attempted to mount a WebDAV server on macOS using Finder. The mount was successful when using the server's IPv4 address or hostname, but failed when using its IPv6 address. I also tested the mount using the NetFS framework API via NetFSMountURLSync. The results were consistent: the mount succeeded with the IPv4 address and hostname but failed when using the IPv6 address. While observing live logs via Console.app, I saw that the process NetAuthSysAgent produced the following error during the IPv6 mount attempt: GetServerInfo failed with error 5
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171
Activity
Jul ’25
C program posix_spawn diskutil fails with error -69877
Hello, I am programming a CLI tool to partition USB disks. I am calling diskutil to do the work, but I am hitting issues with permissions, it seems. Here is a trial run of the same command running diskutil directly on the terminal vs running from my code: Calling diskutil directly (works as expected) % /usr/sbin/diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 MBR Free\ Space gap 2048S fat32 f-fix 100353S Free\ Space tail 0 Started partitioning on disk2 Unmounting disk Creating the partition map Waiting for partitions to activate Formatting disk2s1 as MS-DOS (FAT32) with name f-fix 512 bytes per physical sector /dev/rdisk2s1: 98784 sectors in 98784 FAT32 clusters (512 bytes/cluster) bps=512 spc=1 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf8 spt=32 hds=16 hid=2079 drv=0x80 bsec=100360 bspf=772 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=6 Mounting disk Finished partitioning on disk2 /dev/disk2 (disk image): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: FDisk_partition_scheme +104.9 MB disk2 1: DOS_FAT_32 F-FIX 51.4 MB disk2s1 Calling diskutil programmatically (error -69877) % sudo ./f-fix DEBUG: /usr/sbin/diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 MBR Free Space gap 2048S fat32 f-fix 100353S Free Space tail 0 Started partitioning on disk2 Unmounting disk Error: -69877: Couldn't open device (Is a disk in use by a storage system such as AppleRAID, CoreStorage, or APFS?) Failed to fix drive `/dev/disk2' Source Code The relevant code from my program is this: char *args[16]; int n = 0; args[n++] = "/usr/sbin/diskutil"; args[n++] = "partitionDisk"; args[n++] = (char *)disk; args[n++] = (char *)scheme; (...) args[n++] = NULL; char **parent_env = *_NSGetEnviron(); if (posix_spawnp(&pid, args[0], NULL, NULL, args, parent_env) != 0) return 1; if (waitpid(pid, &status, 0) < 0) return 1; return 0; Question Are there any system protections against running it like so? What could I be missing? Is this a Disk Arbitration issue?
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320
Activity
May ’25
Mounting an external disk from a sandboxed app
I’m attempting to make an app that uses Disk Arbitration to intercept a disk mount (by creating and returning a dissenter in the appropriate callback) and then mount the disk with certain options (specifically, read-only, nobrowse, or both, depending on user options). For example: DADiskMountWithArguments(disk, nil, DADiskMountOptions(kDADiskMountOptionDefault), nil, nil, kReadOnly) …where kReadOnly is a pointer to an array only containing a “rdonly” CFString. While DADiskMountWithArguments seems to be usable in a sandboxed app for disk images, it doesn’t work when the disk is an external disk (e.g. connected via USB). I see lines like this in Console.app when this happens: Sandbox denied authorizing right 'system.volume.external.mount' by client '/path/to/exe' [17934] (engine 580) I’ve identified two workarounds that allow this to work in a sandbox, but both have their own problems: If a LaunchDaemon (even a sandboxed one, which is required for registration with SMAppService.daemon from the sandboxed app) does the call to DADiskMountWithArguments, it will succeed. But App Store policies don’t allow escalation to root. If I use the undocumented entitlement com.apple.security.temporary-exception.sbpl with a value of (allow authorization-right-obtain (right-name "system.volume.external.mount")), the mount works without escalation to root. But I understand that App Review is likely to reject the use of this entitlement, and that this entitlement isn't supported to begin with. Specifically, these are the behaviors I see on macOS Sequoia 15.3.1 and Xcode 16.2. Since I would like to try to publish this app on the App Store, neither of these seem like acceptable solutions. I don’t see why this should be restricted if the sandboxed app is not declaring a special path (i.e. the path in DADiskMountWithArguments is set to nil) and still does not have access to the mounted filesystem - am I missing something/is there a way to accomplish this?
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3
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702
Activity
Mar ’25
Access NVMe SMART on iPad
When using external NVMe devices on iOS / iPadOS I cannot tell how to access the disk SMART data. On macOS I can use NVMeSMARTLibExternal.h to access this information but the same system does not seem to work on iPadOS (even with Thunderbolt NVMe devices). When using M series iPads with professional Thunderbolt storage this woudlbe very useful.
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2
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1k
Activity
Jul ’24
Mount encrypted (password protected) volumes
Is there an API that allows mounting a volume, just like DADiskMount(), but that also accepts a password or automatically requests keychain access for encrypted volumes? Could be APFS or CoreStorage volumes. How do you mount those programmatically?
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912
Activity
Feb ’24
Is there a more modern API than Disk Arbitration to know when a volume has been mounted?
There seems to be at least 3 possible APIs to detect the mounting of a volume on macOS: Endpoint Security APIs through the NOTIFY_MOUNT event. Disk Arbitration NSWorkspace notifications. If we omit NSWorkspace for different reasons (headless, background context), this leaves only 2 choices. From what I'm reading and understanding, the NOTIFY_MOUNT event is just telling that a volume is being mounted. It does not guarantee that the volume is mounted at the time of the event. So this seems to leave only Disk Arbitration. Since the Disk Arbitration API has been there for a long time, the question is: Is there a more modern API than Disk Arbitration to know when a volume has been mounted?
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769
Activity
Nov ’23
How to build something like "Disk Utility.app" left pane
Not the graphic interface. Only an overview of the way to build the hierarchy (disk, container, partition) and functions call
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868
Activity
Jan ’23
Is it possible to set kDADiskDescriptionMediaWritableKey programmatically
Physical written-protected disk like SDCard can update the value of "Media Read-Only", may I ask if there is any API could modify this value when recognising a mounting event? I am trying to not allow erasing my USB when it is mounted with read-only permission, thank you.
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665
Activity
Jan ’23
Prevent erasing a read-only volume
I have multiple mounted volumes of USB and CD and DVD with read-only permission, it seems they are still erasable, any config or flag could manage this? Thanks.
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710
Activity
Dec ’22
Programmatically recognize a disk image mounted from which dmg file
hdiutil command line could get a list of disk images, may I ask if there is any API performing the same? thank you. liz@macos-12 ~ % hdiutil info framework : 623.100.1 driver : 623.100.1 ================================================ image-path : /Users/liz/Downloads/Skype-8.90.0.407.dmg image-alias : /Users/liz/Downloads/Skype-8.90.0.407.dmg shadow-path : <none> icon-path : <none> image-type : read-only disk image system-image : false blockcount : 2048080 blocksize : 512 writeable : false autodiskmount : TRUE removable : TRUE image-encrypted : false mounting user : liz mounting mode : <unknown> process ID : 20600 framework name : DiskImages2 /dev/disk2 GUID_partition_scheme /dev/disk2s1 <GUID> /Volumes/Skype
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1.2k
Activity
Dec ’22
[DiskArbitration] Is it possible to get the state of a Session?
It does not seem to be documented but, according to the DiskArbitration source code from Darwin, if an approval callback does not return after 10 seconds, the session state is set to timeout and further approval callbacks are never called anymore. Based on the source code, it does not seem possible but as I may be missing something: [Q] Is there a way to get/set the state of a DASessionRef or DAApprovalSessionRef? Would there be some kind of notification mechanism to be informed that a session has been set as timed out?
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994
Activity
Sep ’22