About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina
macOS Catalina runs in a read-only system volume, separate from other files on your Mac. When you upgrade to Catalina, a second volume is created, and some files may move to a Relocated Items folder.
macOS Catalina runs on a dedicated, read-only system volume called Macintosh HD. This volume is completely separate from all other data to help prevent the accidental overwriting of critical operating system files. Your files and data are stored in another volume named Macintosh HD — Data. In the Finder, both volumes appear as Macintosh HD.
The Disk Utility app in macOS Catalina shows that Macintosh HD is the read-only system volume and Macintosh HD — Data contains the the rest of your files and data.
If you upgrade to macOS Catalina from an earlier version of macOS, the read-only volume is created during the upgrade process. Files or data that you previously stored in the startup volume are now stored in this new volume, and some of these files may appear in a new folder called Relocated Items. You can check this folder for any files that you can’t locate.
With macOS Catalina, you can no longer store files or data in the read-only system volume, nor can you write to the «root» directory ( / ) from the command line, such as with Terminal.
About the Relocated Items folder
While creating the two separate volumes during the upgrade process, files and data that couldn’t be moved to their new location are placed in a Relocated Items folder. The Relocated Items folder is in the Shared folder within the User folder (/Users/Shared/Relocated Items) and available though a shortcut on the Desktop. The Relocated Items folder includes a PDF document with more details about these files.
Read-only file system when attempting mkdir /data/db on Mac
I am trying to create a new folder in the main directory
Tried all kinds of examples
sudo mkdir -p /data/db
15 Answers 15
If you have Mac and updated to Catalina than the root folder is no longer writable.
I just changed the directory somewhere else.
Been using this command for now
install homebrew and run the following commands
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew —prefix)/*
brew tap mongodb/brew
brew install mongodb-community@4.2
brew services start mongodb-community
mongod —config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf
ps aux | grep -v grep | grep mongod
to verify you can run show dbs in the mongo shell
With the new macOS Catalina update, the folder /data/db becomes read-only, you cannot modify it. Follow this procedure to create a DB in another folder:
Change mongod directory :
sudo mongod —dbpath /System/Volumes/Data/data/db
Give it an alias to use it as mongod :
alias mongod=»sudo mongod —dbpath /System/Volumes/Data/data/db»
Just type mongod in your terminal, it should work.
Extra => If you need to give it current user rights, use this line of code :
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /System/Volumes/Data/data/db
(Just for info -> $(whoami) is just a variable that returns your current user)
To make a permanent change of the path of mongod db folder.
Following these docs they say roughly this. If mongod is started with brew services:
It will use config file at path /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf
To fix this, edit the config file:
And change the dbPath e.g. to your home directory like this:
Save the file and restart mongod with brew:
This is what worked for me as I was undergoing a Udemy course: 1. Install HomeBrew by typing this into your terminal
Move your old /data/db folder (if you want to backup your current dbs) into a non root folder and proceed with the next step
Run in Terminal a) brew uninstall mongodb b) If needed run brew uninstall —force mongodb c) brew tap mongodb/brew d) brew install mongodb-community e) brew services start mongodb/brew/mongodb-community
All you need now is to run mongo in the Terminal and you’ll see the mongo shell symbol >.
Read-only file system» with SIP disabled in macOS Catalina
I am trying to copy some files from a path to my libs path (/usr/lib), I am trying with sudo cp
I have validated and indeed System Integrity Protection is disabled (SIP) I am using macOs Catalina 10.15.4 I Hope you can help me thanks.
2 Answers 2
You just should try with
I just recently joined stack overflow so I am not able to up-vote the above answer. Using sudo mount -uw / definitely works. In my case I needed to add a small script to /sbin to overcome an issue with VMware Tools. Starting with macOS Catalina, disabling SIP and then executing this command as root was the answer.
Not the answer you’re looking for? Browse other questions tagged macos macos-catalina or ask your own question.
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“Read-only file system” when I try to touch in Mac OS Catalina
I’m logged in as admin in MacOS Catalina. When I try to add quota file, I get this output:
1 Answer 1
TL:DR
With macOS Catalina, you can no longer store files or data in the read-only system volume, nor can you write to the «root» directory ( / ) from the command line, such as with Terminal.
macOS Catalina runs in a read-only system volume, separate from other files on your Mac. When you upgrade to Catalina, a second volume is created, and some files may move to a Relocated Items folder.
macOS Catalina runs on a dedicated, read-only system volume called Macintosh HD. This volume is completely separate from all other data to help prevent the accidental overwriting of critical operating system files. Your files and data are stored in another volume named Macintosh HD — Data. In the Finder, both volumes appear as Macintosh HD.
The Disk Utility app in macOS Catalina shows that Macintosh HD is the read-only system volume and Macintosh HD — Data contains the the rest of your files and data.
If you upgrade to macOS Catalina from an earlier version of macOS, the read-only volume is created during the upgrade process. Files or data that you previously stored in the startup volume are now stored in this new volume, and some of these files may appear in a new folder called Relocated Items. You can check this folder for any files that you can’t locate.
With macOS Catalina, you can no longer store files or data in the read-only system volume, nor can you write to the «root» directory ( / ) from the command line, such as with Terminal.
About the Relocated Items folder
While creating the two separate volumes during the upgrade process, files and data that couldn’t be moved to their new location are placed in a Relocated Items folder. The Relocated Items folder is in the Shared folder within the User folder (/Users/Shared/Relocated Items) and available though a shortcut on the Desktop. The Relocated Items folder includes a PDF document with more details about these files.
*Copied from en-gb site, link will redirect your your local language site
Create directory “/dotenv” on MacOs, Read-only file system
I tried to create a directory under root (the directory when I open terminal)
But the system says:
mkdir: /dotenv: Read-only file system
My OS is Catalina 10.15.2
Is there any way to create the dir? I need to run a node.js server locally which requires .env file in the /dotenv dir
1 Answer 1
You’ll need to use mkdir dotenv if you are at your profile root (which it appears you are). That was the only way I could get it to work (I am on Catalina 10.15.3 ).
Using mkdir /dotenv (notice the / ) I got the same error as you.
If you really want to, you can disable the read-only file system in Catalina by following these steps (which are also listed below).
Problem because of Read-only file system in mac os catalina
Boot you mac system into recovery mode. (by bootup system with holding CMD+R).
Open terminal (Present in «Utilities» in the top left menu).
Restart your system and Bootup normally
Before doing any activity open terminal and run command.
Once this all done you can do write in root location
Question: Q: Read-only file system external drive
Problem: Two of my external Western Digital drives have suddenly and simultaneously been designated as «read-only file systems.» Consequently, I cannot access them, even with sudo.
Need: I want to mount the drives with read-write access.
This problem renders Time Machine useless and means I have to (occasionally) spend hours manually copying files back and forth using the terminal, as the Finder is never capable of doing so without an error.
At the very least, I would like a workaround to remove whatever marker the OS uses to designate the drives as read-only. Compared to copying hundreds of GB for no reason, I’d be happy to execute a Terminal command or two.
I suspect the problem is caused because WD drives spin down regularly and take longer than macOS would like to spin back up. They are then designated as read-only because the OS has had difficulties accessing them multiple times.
This Mac is running a pristine version of Sierra, installed about two weeks ago after erasing the internal drive. I do not manually change system files or install programs which modify system files (cache-cleaners, etc.).
The drives are not damaged. I have checked them many times on multiple computers. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve been locked out. Please let us work on the assumption that they are in good working order.
The drives appear in the finder on restart only.
Once unmounted (ejected), I cannot remount them using:
- the GUI Disk Utility
- diskutil
- mount (the -uw option doesn’t work on hfs as demonstrated with -dv), or
- mount_hfs
I can read from the drives.
I tried Nicholas Vahalik’s idea of turning off journaling with hfs.util and running fsck_hfs. hfs.util worked, but the disk wasn’t journaled. fsck_hfs was unable to write to the drive.
I am unable to change permissions using the Finder or the shell, but they appear to be set correctly for my user to have read/write access anyway.
Both drives contain some hidden files in their root directories. I suspect one (or more) may have locked the file system. In other words, when the OS goes to use the drive, if it sees one of these files present, it designates it as read-only. The suspect files are:
- .apdisk (apparently a new apple fs?)
- .fseventsd (a directory, but may contain something pertinent)
- two others I’ll need to reboot to see again. Something like .diskID and .diskIDx2
However, I cannot access the above files to move or delete them for testing purposes.
There is something «higher-level» going on that prevents write access on the drives. Any help determining what that is, would be appreciated!
Mac mini, macOS Sierra (10.12.1)
Posted on Oct 26, 2016 9:24 AM
All replies
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How are they formatted?
Oct 26, 2016 9:27 AM
Oct 27, 2016 8:57 AM
Thats correct (except for the lack of journaling), but doesn’t explain why they don’t write. Can you temporarily move the content of one of them off the drive and reformat it correctly?
Oct 27, 2016 9:01 AM
$ diskutil info disk3s2
has revealed that the drives are «Read-Only Volumes,» but I haven’t been able to discover why this is the case or how they were designated as such.
I have found that the following commands save me from having to restart the Mac to remount the drive each time:
$ sudo mkdir /Volumes/BackupDrive
$ sudo /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/Contents/Resources/hfs.util -m disk3s2 /Volumes/BackupDrive fixed readonly nosuid nodev
The fixed flag came from the diskutil info command above. The readonly flag appears to be required, as writeable (or «writable» in the error message, also see man entry) will not work.
The fact that the writeable flag will not work makes me think that the file system has been set to read-only in some other way. It is not simply a matter of deliberately mounting it rw. I have tried chmod, xattr, and attempted to change the UUID (hfs.util -s) of the partition in the hope that this would separate the drive info from whatever is designating it read-only. This was unsuccessful.
I suspect this is less complicated than it seems, but no solution yet.
This does seem to be a common problem, and has been for many versions of macOS.