Friday, June 10, 2011

How to mount Mac OS X hsf+ partition (rw) in Linux

SkyHi @ Friday, June 10, 2011
Update: Posted follow up article to mount HFS+ dd images
The first time I tried to mount a Mac OS X partition in Linux, I ran into several issues. Here were the problems I had and the resolution.

HFS+ partition structure
Man computer forensic jobs are on Windows or even Linux computer which use the DOS partition structure. So, the first time you come across a Apple partition, things look a bit different. The following are the partitions, as seen by mmls and parted, on a HFS+ USB drive:

mmls output
wintermute:/mnt# mmls /dev/sdc
MAC Partition Map
Offset Sector: 0
Units are in 512-byte sectors

     Slot    Start        End          Length       Description
00:  -----   0000000000   0000000000   0000000001   Unallocated
01:  00      0000000001   0000000063   0000000063   Apple_partition_map
02:  Meta    0000000001   0000000004   0000000004   Table
03:  01      0000000064   0000262207   0000262144   Apple_Free
04:  02      0000262208   0160086511   0159824304   Apple_HFS
05:  03      0160086512   0160086527   0000000016   Apple_Free

parted output
wintermute:/mnt# parted /dev/sdc
GNU Parted 1.7.1
Using /dev/sdc
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print

Disk /dev/sdc: 82.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: mac

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                  Flags
1      0.51kB  32.8kB  32.3kB               Apple
3      134MB   82.0GB  81.8GB  hfs+         Apple_HFS_Untitled_1

HFS+ partition and journaling
When you mount the HFP+ partition, you issue the following:
wintermute:/mnt# mount -t hfsplus /dev/sdc3 /mnt/sdc/
and while everything looks good from mount:
wintermute:/mnt# mount
/dev/sdc3 on /mnt/sdc type hfsplus
the journaled filesystem has actually caused some issues. You notice this is you want to write to the drive or if you look at dmesg:
sdc1: rw=0, want=262211, limit=63
hfs: unable to find HFS+ superblock
hfs: write access to a jounaled filesystem is not supported, use the force option at your own risk, mounting read-only.

Disabling journaling on HFP+ file system
If you need to write data to this drive (helpful as I move files between Linux, Windows and OS X forensic workstations), you can remove the journaling from the file system. This is not recommended for the system partition on a Mac but is fine for a data drive. Of course, understanding the benefits of a journaled file system for data recovery is important. Anyway, to remove the journal I issued from following command on my OS X workstation per Apple’s support article:
neuromancer:/Volumes root# /usr/sbin/diskutil disableJournal /Volumes/mac-backup


On your Mac:

Open Disk Utility under Applications -> Utilities
Select the volume to disable journaling on.
Choose Disable Journaling from the File menu.




Write away
Placing the drive back in Linux and mount with the same command as above resulting in a writable HFS+ partition on my Linux workstation:
wintermute:/mnt# mount
/dev/sdc3 on /mnt/sdc type hfsplus (rw)


REFERENCES
http://progadmin.blogspot.com/2010/07/mount-hfsplus-mac-os-file-system-under.html

http://viaforensics.com/computer-forensics/how-to-mount-mac-os-x-hsf-partition-in-linux.html
http://superuser.com/questions/84446/how-to-mount-a-hfs-partition-in-ubuntu-as-read-write