Mounting SD Cards

MacOS Instructions

The instructions below are only viable for MacOS based Host operating systems. For Linux, please refer to [/linux-notes].

Mounting ext4 Linux partition

Check MacOS Notes for detailed instructions. todo: move the instructions in this document

Mounting boot partition

• Insert your SD Card in the Card Reader
• Open Terminal and enter following commands

# => if one fails, try the other one
$ sudo mount /Volumes/boot -o remount,rw
$ sudo mount -uw /Volumes/boot

You should be able to write to boot partition now, ie.: touch /Volumes/boot/hey.txt. See Raspberry Pi Quick Guide on how to enable SSH via this method.

Linux Instructions

todo: add linux instructions, if required.

Other Tricks

Labeling OS image on the SD Card

It is sometimes confusing to maintain large number of SD Cards, over large number of SBCs. To easily identify multiple SD Cards from each other, you can simply create a text file in /boot partition of your microSD with meaningful names, ie:

<sdcard>/boot/os-kali-linux.txt or <sdcard>/boot/os-raspbian.txt are meaningful names, and it’s easily identified without needing for a boot. Just insert microSD in your card reader, and open the /boot partition.

Use Simple Authentication

Use simple user and password authentication across all images, ie: pi:pi for all Raspberries, Lemaker’s Boards and other SBCs. That way you don’t need to remember each and all of them.

hint: additionally, add the user:pass auth combo in the /boot/os-*.txt file, described in Labeling OS image on the SD Card.

Set Wi-Fi Network Credentials in wpa_supplicant.conf

In the /boot/ partition, create a new file wpa_supplicant.conf, and save it like this:

# => wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=BA
network={
	ssid="The Matrix"
	psk="wifi-password-1234	"
	key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}