apfsuseragent(8) [mojave man page]
APFSUSERAGENT(8) BSD System Manager's Manual APFSUSERAGENT(8) NAME
APFSUserAgent -- APFS new container observer DESCRIPTION
The APFSUserAgent watches for IOKit notifications about new APFS containers appearing. APFSUserAgent checks APFS containers for encrypted volumes. If found, pops up a DiskUnlock dialog to ask user for volume unlock password. EXIT VALUES
APFSUserAgent always returns 0. Mac OS X April 23, 2017 Mac OS X
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ASR(8) BSD System Manager's Manual ASR(8) NAME
asr -- Apple Software Restore; copy volumes (e.g. from disk images) SYNOPSIS
asr verb [options] asr restore[exact] --source source --target target [options] asr server --source source --config configuration [options] asr restore --source asr://source --file file [options] asr imagescan --source image [options] asr help | version DESCRIPTION
asr efficiently copies disk images onto volumes, either directly or via a multicast network stream. asr can also accurately clone volumes without the use of an intermediate disk image. In its first form, asr copies source (usually a disk image, potentially on an HTTP server) to target. source can be specified using a path in the filesystem, or an http or https URL. It can also be an asr:// URL to indicate a multicast source. asr can also be invoked with its second form to act as a multicast server. In its third form, asr will restore a multicast disk image to a file instead of disk volume. In its fourth form, asr prepares a disk image to be restored efficiently, adding whole-volume checksum information. help and version provide usage and version information, respectively. source and target can be /dev entries or volume mountpoints. For more information on restoring to or from APFS filesystems, see the RESTORING WITH APFS FILESYSTEMS section below. If restoring a multicast disk image to a file, file can be a path to a local file or directory. If the specified path is a file, the disk image is given the specified name. If a directory, the name of the disk image being multicast is used. When specifying server, source has to be a UDIF disk image. Restoring from a multicast stream is accomplished by passing a asr:// url as source. When run in its first form above, the --erase option must always be used, as asr no longer supports file copying. Such functionality is done better by ditto(1). asr needs to be run as root (see sudo(8)) in order to accomplish its tasks. VERBS
Each verb is listed with its description and individual arguments. restore restores a disk image or volume to another volume (including a mounted disk image) --source can be a disk image, /dev entry, or volume mountpoint. In the latter two cases, the volume must be unmountable or mounted read-only in order for a erase blockcopy to occur (thus, one cannot erase blockcopy the root filesys- tem as the source, unless it happened to be mounted read-only). --target can be a /dev entry, or volume mountpoint. Must be unmountable in order for an erase block-copy to occur. If source specifies an image of an APFS container, then target can specify a mounted APFS volume. See the RESTORING WITH APFS FILESYSTEMS section below for details. --file when performing a multicast restore, --file can be specified instead of --target. If the specified path is a file, the disk image is given the specified name. If a directory, the name of the disk image being multicast is used. --erase erases target and is required. --erase must always be used, as file copies are no longer supported by asr. If source is a asr:// url for restoring from a multicast stream, --erase must be passed (multicasting only supports erase block-copy restores). Passing --erase with --file indicates any existing file should be overwritten when doing a multicast file copy. --format HFS+ | HFSX specifies the destination filesystem format, when --erase is also given. If not specified, the destination will be formatted with the same filesystem format as the source. If multicasting, the --format specified must be block copy compatible with the source. --format is ignored if --erase is not used. Note: HFS Journaling is an attribute of the source image, and is not affected by --format. --noprompt suppresses the prompt which usually occurs before target is erased. newfs_hfs(8) will be called on target and once you start writing new data, there isn't much hope for recovery. You have been warned. --timeout num specifies num seconds that a multicast client should wait when no payload data has been received over a multi- cast stream before exiting, allowing the client to stop in case of server failure/stoppage. It defaults to 0 (i.e. never time out). --puppetstrings provide progress output that is easy for another program to parse. Any program trying to interpret asr's progress should use --puppetstrings. --noverify skips the verification steps normally taken to ensure that a volume has been properly restored. --noverify allows images which have not been scanned to be restored. Skipping verification is dangerous for a number of reasons and should never be used in production systems. --allowfragmentedcatalog allows restores to proceed even if the source's catalog file is fragmented (in particular, if it has more than 8 extents). By default such restores are disallowed. Catalog fragmentation is undesirable and in most cases it is better to fix the problem on the source (e.g. by running fsck_hfs -r on it), but --allowfragmentedcatalog is provided for situations where such a change is impractical. This option only makes sense if the source specifes an HFS+ filesystem variant. It is otherwise ignored. --corestorageconvert Cause target to be converted to a Core Storage LVG at the end of the restore. After the copy and verify are complete, asr will create a new Core Storage Logical Volume Group (LVG), using the partition represented by target as its only physical volume (PV). The volume contents restored from source will be present as a single logical volume (LV) exported from this LVG. If target is already a Core Storage LV, then this option has no effect. --SHA256 forces the restore to use the SHA-256 hash in the image during verification. If the image doesn't contain a SHA-256 hash, then an error will be raised. --sourcevolumename tells asr which volume in the source container to invert when doing an APFS restore. It is an error if more than one volume has the specified name. You can see the volume names and UUIDs by running asr with the info verb. See the section RESTORING WITH APFS FILESYSTEMS below for when this option is necessary. --sourcevolumeUUID tells asr which volume in the source container to invert when doing an APFS restore. You can see the volume names and UUIDs by running asr with the info verb. See the section RESTORING WITH APFS FILESYSTEMS below for when this option is necessary. restoreexact performs the same operation as restore, taking all the same options, but with the following difference: the target partition is resized to exactly match the size of the source partition/volume, if such a resize can be done. If the target partition needs to grow and there is not enough space, then the operation will fail. If it needs to shrink, then it should always be able to do so, possibly leaving free space in the target disk's partition map. Because the target exactly matches the source in size, all volume structures should be identical in source and target upon completion of the restore. server multicasts source over the network. Requires --erase be passed in by clients (multicasting only supports erase block-copy restores). --source source has to be a UDIF disk image. A path to a disk image on a local/remote volume can be passed in, or a http:// url to a disk image that is accessible via a web server. --interface the network interface to be used for multicasting (e.g. en0) instead of the default network interface. --config server requires a configuration file to be passed, in standard property list format. The following keys/options configure the various parameters for multicast operation. Required Data Rate this is the desired data rate in bytes per second. On average, the stream will go slightly slower than this speed, but will never exceed it. It's a number in the plist (-int when set with defaults(1)). Note: The performance/reliability of the networking infrastructure being multicast on is an important factor in determining what data rate can be supported. Excessive/bursty packet loss for a given data rate could be due to an inability of the server/client to be able to send/receive multicast data at that rate, but it's equally important to verify that the network infrastructure can support multicasting at the requested rate. Multicast Address this is the Multicast address for the data stream. It's a string in the plist. Optional Client Data Rate this is the rate the slowest client can write data to its target in bytes per second. if asr misses data on the first pass (x's during progress) and slowing the Data Rate doesn't resolve it, setting the Client Data Rate will dynamically regulate the speed of the multicast stream to allow clients more time to write the data. It's a number in the plist (-int when set with defaults(1)). DNS Service Discovery whether the server should be advertised via DNS Service Discovery, a.k.a. Bonjour (tm). It defaults to true. It's a boolean in the plist (-bool when set with defaults(1)). Loop Suspend a limit of the number of times to multicast the image file when no clients have started a restore opera- tion. Once exceeded, the server will stop the stream and wait for new clients before multicasting the image file. It defaults to 0 (e.g. never stop multicasting once a client starts the stream), and should not be set to <2. It's a number in the plist (-int when set with defaults(1)). Multicast TTL the time to live on the multicast packets (for multicasting through routers). It defaults to 3. It can- not be set to 0, and should not be set to 1 (otherwise, it could adversely affect some network routers). It's a number in the plist (-int when set with defaults(1)). Port the port of initial client-server handshake, version checks, multicast restore metadata, and stream data. It defaults to 7800. This should only be included/modified if the default port cannot be used. It's a number in the plist (-int when set with defaults(1)). imagescan calculate checksums of the data in the provided image and store them in the image. These checksums are used to ensure proper restores. SHA-1 and SHA-256 hashes are used. Also determines if the disk image is in order for multicasting, and rewrites the file in order if not. If the image has to be reordered, it will require free disk space equal to the size of the disk image being scanned. --nostream bypasses the check/reordering of a disk image file for multicasting. By default disk images will be rewritten in a way that's necessary for multicasting. --allowfragmentedcatalog bypasses the check for a fragmented catalog file. By default that check is done and scanning won't be allowed on an image that has a fragmented catalog file. It is usually a better idea to fix the image (e.g. run fsck_hfs -r on a writable copy of it) than to use --allowfragmentedcatalog, but it is provided in case fixing the image is impracti- cal. info report the image metadata which was placed in the image by a previous use of the imagescan verb. Requires --source. The report is written to standard output. --plist writes its output as an XML-formatted plist, suitable for parsing by another program. RESTORING WITH APFS FILESYSTEMS
Individual APFS volumes can not be restored directly, because their device nodes don't allow I/O from a standard process. However, asr can restore entire APFS containers, including all volumes. Or it can restore valid system configurations, which can get the effect of restoring a single system. This requires understanding what is meant by a valid system. In order for an APFS volume to be bootable, it must contain a properly installed macOS system. It must also be part of an APFS container which also has two special volumes in it: a Preboot volume and a Recovery volume. A container may have arbitrarily many system volumes in it, but it must have only one Preboot volume and one Recovery volume, each with the corresponding APFS volume role set (see diskutil(1) for information on roles). The Preboot and Recovery volumes contain information which is tied to each system volume in the container. So for a system volume to be bootable, that information needs to be set up in the Preboot and Recovery volumes. A system which is part of a container that has these two special volumes, and for which the requisite information is set up in those volumes, will be referred to here as a valid system. If the source of a restore is an APFS image (i.e. an image which contains an APFS container), then asr does different things depending on how target was specified: Volume Restore If the target is an individual volume within an existing APFS container, then asr will block restore the APFS container to a file within that volume, after which it will invert the volume within the restored container, erasing the previous contents of the target volume and replacing them with the source volume contents. If the source container only has a single non-special volume (i.e. not Pre- boot or Recovery), then that is the volume which will be inverted. If the source container has more than one non-special volume, then either the --sourcevolumename or --sourcevolumeUUID option must be present and must specify the volume to invert. Additionally, if the volume being inverted is a valid system (as defined above), then the relevant contents of both the Preboot and Recovery volumes will be copied from the source to the target, creating those volumes on the target if necessary. Volume Restore with Creation If the target is a synthesized APFS whole disk or Apple_APFS partition, and the --erase option is not present, then asr will create a new volume in the given container, after which it will do a volume restore to that new volume, as with the previous section. All other volumes in the container are preserved. Volume Restore with Erase If the target is a synthesized APFS whole disk or any disk partition, and the --erase option is present, then asr will erase the exist- ing partition, create a new APFS container and a new volume in it, after which it will do a volume restore to that new volume, as with the previous section. See the EXAMPLES section below for some command lines that show these operations. BUFFERING
The following options control how asr uses memory. These options can have a significant impact on performance. asr is optimized for copying between devices (different disk drives, from a network volume to a local disk, etc). As such, asr defaults to using eight one megabyte buf- fers. These buffers are wired down (occupying physical memory). For partition to partition copies on the same device, one large buffer (e.g. 32 MB) is much faster than the default eight medium sized ones. For multicast, 4 256k buffers are the default. Custom buffering for multicast operation is not recommended. --csumbuffers and --csumbuffersize allow a different buffer configuration for checksumming operations. One checksum buffer offers the best performance. The default is 1 1MB buffer. Custom checksum buffering is not recommended. Like mkfile(8), size defaults to bytes but can be followed by a multiplier character (e.g. 'm'). --buffers num specifies that num buffers should be used. --buffersize size specifies the size of each buffer. --csumbuffers num specifies that num buffers should be used for checksumming operations (which only affect the target). Custom checksum buffering is not recommended. --csumbuffersize size specifies the size of each buffer used for checksumming. Custom checksum buffering is not recommended. OTHER OPTIONS
--verbose enables verbose progress and error messages. --debug enables other progress and error messages. EXAMPLES
Volume cloning: sudo asr restore --source /Volumes/Classic --target /Volumes/install --erase Restoring: sudo asr restore -s <compressedimage> -t <targetvol> --erase Will erase the target and potentially do a block copy restore. Multicast server: asr server --source <compressedimage> --config <configuration.plist> Will start up a multicast server for the specified image, using the parameters in the configuration.plist. The image will not start multicas- ting on the network until a client attempts to start a restore. The server will continue to multicast the image until the process is termi- nated. An example multicast configuration file: defaults write /tmp/streamconfig "Data Rate" -int 6000000 defaults write /tmp/streamconfig "Multicast Address" <mcastaddr> (will create the file /tmp/streamconfig.plist) <mcastaddr> should be appropriate for your network infrastructure and policy, usually from a range assigned by your network administrator. Multicast client sudo asr restore --source asr://<hostname> --target <targetvol> --erase Multicast client restoring to a file sudo asr restore --source asr://<hostname> --file <file> --erase Will receive the multicast stream from <hostname> and save it to a file. If <file> is a directory, the image of the streamed disk image will be used the save the file. --erase causes any existing file with the same name to be overwritten. Restoring a single APFS volume sudo asr restore -s <APFS image> -t /Volumes/MyAPFSVolume --erase In this case the contents of MyAPFSVolume will be replaced by the contents of the source container's single APFS volume, possibly including any associated data for the Preboot and Recovery volumes, if the source is a valid system. If the source has more than one non-special vol- ume, this is an error. No other volumes in the target will be affected. Restoring one of many APFS volumes sudo asr restore -s <APFS image> --sourcevolumename SourceVolume -t /Volumes/MyAPFSVolume --erase This tells asr to select the volume named "SourceVolume" from the given APFS image. If there is no volume with that name, or if there are more than one with that name, it is an error. Use the info verb to see the volume names and UUIDs for an image. No other volumes in the target will be affected. Creating a new APFS volume on the fly sudo asr restore -s <APFS image> --sourcevolumename SourceVolume -t /dev/disk2 Here we get the same effect as the last example, except that asr will create a new volume on the target APFS container disk, given by /dev/disk2, and use that newly created volume as the target. Any volumes which already existed in the container will still be there after the restore. Overwriting the existing container sudo asr restore -s <APFS image> --sourcevolumename SourceVolume -t /dev/disk2 --erase Like the last example, we restore to a new volume on the target APFS container disk. However in this case we are erasing the target, so any volumes which already existed are destroyed. Looking at an image's volume names/UUIDs asr info -s <APFS image> Assuming this image has been previously scanned (using the imagescan verb), this will display the volumes' names and UUIDs so they can be used with the --sourcevolumename or --sourcevolumeUUID options. HOW TO USE ASR
asr requires a properly created disk image for most efficient operation. This image is most easily made with the Disk Utility application's "Image from Folder" function in OS X 10.3. The Disk Copy from OS X 10.2.3 (v55.6) or later can also be used. Basic steps for imaging and restoring a volume: 1. Set up the source volume the way you want it. 2. Use Disk Utility's "File -> New Image -> Image from Folder..." function and select the root of the volume. Save the image as read-only or compressed. "File->New Image->Image from <device>" is not recommended for restorable images. 3. Scan the image with "Images -> Scan Image for Restore..." 4. Select a volume and click on the "Restore" button. Then click on the "Image..." button to select the image you have scanned. Click Restore. BLOCK COPY RESTORE REQUIREMENTS
asr can block copy restore HFS+/HFSX filesystems and resize the source filesystem to fit in the target's partition if the source filesystem data blocks will fit within the target partition's space (resizing the filesystem geometry as appropriate). HFS+ can be used as the source of a block copy to either an HFS+ or HFSX destination. However, an HFSX source can only be used to block copy to an HFSX destination. This is because case collision of file names could occur when converting from an HFSX filesystem to HFS+. Certain non-HFS+/HFSX filesystems will block copy restore, but the target partition will be resized to match the size of the source image/partition size, with no filesystem resizing occurring. COMPATIBILITY
asr maintains compatibility with previous syntax, e.g. asr -source source -target target [options] asr -source source -server configuration [options] asr -source asr://source -file file [options] asr -imagescan [options] image asr -h | -v where -source, -target, and -file are equivalent to --source, --target, and --file respectively, and all [options] are equivalent to their -- descriptions. asr -server configuration is superseded by asr server --config configuration. The following deprecated options also remain: -nocheck this option is deprecated, but remains for script compatibility. Use -noverify instead. -blockonly this option is deprecated, but remains for script compatibility. On by default. Note that if an image scanned with -blockonly cannot be block-copied to a particular target an error will occur, since the file-copy information was omitted. Note: Compatibility with previous syntax is not guaranteed in the next major OS release. ERRORS
asr will exit with status 1 if it cannot complete the requested operation. A human readable error message will be printed in most cases. If asr has already started writing to the target volume when the error occurs, then it will erase the target, leaving it in a valid (but empty) state. It will, however, leave it unmounted. Some of the error messages which asr prints are generated by the underlying subsystems that it uses, and their meaning is not always obvious. Here are some useful guidelines: 1. asr does some preflight testing before it starts actually copying data. Errors that show up during this preflighting are usually clear (e.g. "There is not enough space in volume "Macintosh HD" to do the restore.") 2. If an error occurs during the copy, it might be because there is corruption in the source image file. Try running "hdiutil verify" with the image. A common error message which indicates this is "codec overrun". 3. Errors which occur during the copy and which don't have an obvious cause (i.e. the error message is difficult to interpret) may be tran- sient in nature (e.g. there was an I/O error on the disk), and it is worth simply trying the restore again. HISTORY
Apple Software Restore got its start as a field service restoration tool used to reconfigure computers' software to 'factory' state. It later became a more general software restore mechanism and software installation helper application for various Apple computer products. ASR has been used in manufacturing processes and in shipping computers' System Software Installers. For Mac OS X, asr was rewritten as a command line tool for manufacturing and professional customers. asr is the backend for the Mac OS X Software Restore application that shipped on Macintosh computers as well as the Scan and Restore functionality in Disk Utility. Multicast support was added to allow multiple clients to erase restore an image from a multicast network stream. Per its history, most functionality in asr is limited to HFS+ volumes. SEE ALSO
hdiutil(1), df(1), bless(8), ditto(1), and what(1) Mac OS X 23 October 2012 Mac OS X