Documentation Overview

  1. Operation documentation
    1. UBOS Linux installation
      1. Run UBOS on a PC (64bit)
      2. Run UBOS from a boot stick on a PC (64bit)
      3. Run UBOS in a VirtualBox virtual machine (64bit)
      4. Run UBOS with Docker
      5. Run UBOS on an Amazon Web Services EC2 virtual server
      6. Run UBOS on Raspberry Pi 5
      7. Run UBOS on ESPRESSObin
      8. Run UBOS in a Linux container on a PC (64bit)
      9. Run UBOS in an AArch64 Linux container
    2. Setting up your first Site and App
    3. Setting up networking and DNS
    4. How to create a website secured by SSL/TLS
    5. How to set up a website as a Tor hidden service
    6. Managing Sites and Apps
    7. Backup and restore
    8. Upgrading and keeping your Device current
    9. The UBOS Staff
    10. App-specific notes
      1. Reliably send e-mail via Amazon Web Services’ Simple E-mail Service: amazonses
      2. Static website hosting with rsync-based upload: docroot
      3. Notes on Mastodon
      4. Notes on Nextcloud
      5. Notes on Redirect
      6. Notes on Wordpress
    11. Device-specific Notes
      1. ESPRESSObin
      2. Raspberry Pi
    12. Advanced management
      1. Enabling non-standard package repositories
      2. Migrating from one App to another
      3. Pinning resources
    13. FAQ, HOWTOs and Troubleshooting
      1. “Package not found error” when installing a new App or Accessory
      2. A UBOS container comes up degraded
      3. Booting UBOS on a PC starts out fine, but then the screen goes blank
      4. Can I use UBOS without purchasing a domain name?
      5. Cannot access MySQL database. File missing: /etc/mysql/root-defaults-ubos.cnf
      6. Cannot boot UBOS from boot stick on a PC
      7. Cannot connect to the public internet from a UBOS container
      8. Cannot create a temporary backup; the backup directory is not empty
      9. Failed to create file /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload
      10. How are the various UBOS images different from each other?
      11. How can I install more than one web App on the same Device?
      12. How do I report a bug?
      13. How do I set up WiFi?
      14. How to enable non-standard Package Repositories
      15. How to get help
      16. How to log into your UBOS Device
      17. How to modify the configuration of your Site
      18. How to report a bug or issue
      19. How to use Pagekite to reach your UBOS Device behind a firewall
      20. How to use SSH
      21. I need a Package that isn’t in UBOS
      22. I need root
      23. I own a domain name, and I’d like to use it for my UBOS Device. How do I do that?
      24. I want to move from one device to another, or from/to the cloud to/from a device
      25. I want to run ssh on a non-standard port
      26. I’m running out of disk space, what now?
      27. Installing a new Package or updating fails with a message about “invalid or corrupted package” or “key is disabled”
      28. Installing a new Package or upgrading fails with a message about “unknown trust”
      29. Is it safe to have my Site accessible from the public web?
      30. My non-English keyboard layout is all screwed up
      31. My SD card is much larger than the UBOS image. How do I use the rest of the space?
      32. Nothing happens when UBOS is supposed to be booting
      33. Problems with “IPv6 Packet Filtering Framework”
      34. UBOS is in a “degraded” state
      35. ubos-admin status reports “Systemd unit … has failed”
      36. Verify your downloaded UBOS image
      37. What is the default “root” password?
      38. What text editor can I use on UBOS?
      39. Why did you derive UBOS Linux from Arch Linux, and what is the relationship between UBOS Linux and Arch?
      40. Why does UBOS ask for a domain name when installing a new Site?
      41. Why is it called UBOS?
      42. Writing a disk image to a USB stick or SD card
        1. Writing an image to a USB stick or SD card on Linux
        2. Writing an image to a USB stick or SD card on macOS
        3. Writing an image to a USB stick or SD card on Windows
    14. Command reference
  2. Developer documentation
    1. Developer setup
      1. Developing using Docker (all Intel platforms)
      2. Developing using a systemd-nspawn container (Linux host only)
      3. Developing using Arch Linux on VirtualBox x86_64 with a systemd-nspawn container
      4. Developing using Arch Linux using UTM on Apple Silicon with a systemd-nspawn container
      5. Developing using Arch Linux using Parallels on Apple Silicon with a systemd-nspawn container
    2. Developer tutorials for standalone UBOS Gears apps (not UBOS Mesh)
      1. Build and run your first UBOS Gears App
      2. How to package UBOS Standalone Apps built with a variety of languages
        1. Hello World
        2. Glad-I-Was-Here (PHP, MySQL)
        3. An Accessory for Glad-I-Was-Here (PHP, MySQL)
        4. Glad-I-Was-Here (PHP, Postgresql)
        5. Glad-I-Was-Here (Java, MySQL)
        6. Glad-I-Was-Here (Python, MySQL)
    3. UBOS Gears Reference
      1. UBOS Manifest
        1. Structure of the UBOS Manifest
        2. Info section
        3. Roles section
        4. Customization points section
        5. Appinfo section
        6. Accessoryinfo section
        7. Variables available at deploy or undeploy
        8. Functions that may be applied to variables
        9. Creating random values
        10. Scripts in UBOS Manifests
      2. Site JSON
      3. A complex deployment example
      4. UBOS Networking
      5. Allocating and opening up non-default ports
      6. Logging
      7. UBOS state
      8. UBOS Backup format
      9. Format of the App Status JSON
      10. Testing standalone Apps with “webapptest”
      11. Understanding ubos-admin
        1. Command: ubos-admin backup
        2. Command: ubos-admin backupinfo
        3. Command: ubos-admin createsite
        4. Command: ubos-admin deploy
        5. Command: ubos-admin hostid
        6. Command: ubos-admin init-staff
        7. Command: ubos-admin list-data-transfer-protocols
        8. Command: ubos-admin listnetconfigs
        9. Command: ubos-admin listsites
        10. Command: ubos-admin read-configuration-from-staff
        11. Command: ubos-admin restore
        12. Command: ubos-admin setnetconfig
        13. Command: ubos-admin setup-shepherd
        14. Command: ubos-admin showappconfig
        15. Command: ubos-admin shownetconfig
        16. Command: ubos-admin showsite
        17. Command: ubos-admin status
        18. Command: ubos-admin undeploy
        19. Command: ubos-admin update
        20. Command: ubos-admin write-configuration-to-staff
    4. Release channels and UBOS release process
    5. Miscellaneous
      1. Potentially useful infrastructure for standalone Apps
        1. The UBOS rsync server
      2. Middleware-specific notes
        1. Node.js notes
        2. SMTP notes
      3. Setting up an Arch Linux system
        1. Prepare a PC for installing Arch Linux
        2. Prepare a VirtualBox virtual machine to develop for UBOS using Arch Linux
        3. Continuing the Arch Linux installation on a PC or virtual machine
        4. Finishing the Arch development installation by adding UBOS tools
    6. Developer FAQ
      1. Doesn’t apt / dpkg / yum / pacman etc. does what UBOS Gears does already?
      2. Doesn’t puppet / chef / ansible etc. does what UBOS Gears does already?
      3. Doesn’t Docker do what UBOS Gears does already?
      4. How to profile the UBOS Personal Data Mesh web application
      5. Is it possible to run the other UBOS components on an operating system other than UBOS Linux?
      6. How to create a UBOS development VM for VirtualBox
      7. How to create a UBOS development VM for UTM on Apple computers
      8. How to create a UBOS development VM for Parallels Desktop on Apple Silicon

Writing an image to a USB stick or SD card on macOS

/docs/operation/faq-howto-troubleshooting/writing-image/macos/

The instructions are the same, regardless of whether you write the image to a USB stick, or to an SD card.

If you are writing to an SD card, you can use your computer’s built-in SD card reader (if it has one), or use a USB adapter.

Note

In more recent versions of Mac OSX, a feature called “System Integrity Protection” (SIP) may prevent even the root user from directly writing to disk. To be able to write your UBOS image to a USB stick or SD card, you may need to either disable SIP (not recommended), or give the Terminal app extra rights (better). To do the latter, in “System Preferences”, select “Security & Privacy”, then “Full Disk Access” and add “Terminal” to the list of apps (usually empty) that have full access. How to do that is described in more detail in this OSXdaily article.

To write the image:

  • Run the Terminal app that comes with macOS. All commands below are intended to be run in the Terminal app.

  • Determine the device name of your USB stick or SD card. That is easiest if you run:

    % diskutil list
    

    before you insert the USB stick or SD card, and then after. The device that has shown up is the device that you just inserted. For example, the device name may be /dev/disk8.

    Warning

    Make sure you get the device name right, otherwise you might accidentally destroy the data on some other hard drive!

    Warning

    Also make sure your USB stick or SD card does not contain any valuable data; it will be mercilessly overwritten.

  • Depending on what’s on your USB stick or SD card, OSX might have automatically mounted it. To unmount:

    % diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
    
  • Determine the file name of the image you downloaded. Let’s assume it is ~/Downloads/ubos_green_x86_64-pc_LATEST.img. If you downloaded a compressed version, uncompress the file first.

  • Write the image using dd, such as:

    % sudo dd if=~/Downloads/ubos_green_x86_64-pc_LATEST.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m
    

    replacing /dev/rdiskN with the device name of your USB stick or SD card. You can use either /dev/diskN or /dev/rdiskN (replacing N with the correct number), but /dev/rdiskN is faster.

    If you see the error dd: Invalid number `1m', you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M.

    This may take 10min or longer, depending on the speed of your USB stick or SD card, so be patient.

  • When done, for good measure:

    % sync
    

    and wait for a little bit. Rumor has it some flash drives keep writing for some time after the OS thinks they are done. If that is true for your device, and you remove the device prematurely, you may end up with a corrupted image without a good way of telling that it happened.

Thanks to the Ubuntu project whose description helped when creating this page.