Basically my goal is to achieve a monolithic system imaging in High Sierra. Previously, I was able to do this as per the link below (scroll all the way down to the Advanced section) Here's what I did: I upgraded a MacBook from Sierra to High Sierra OS. I then booted it to recovery mode and entered the following commands in Terminal to create the image.hdiutil create -srcFolder /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ -size XX -format UDRW -layout GPTSPUD /Volumes/ExternalHDD/tempimage hdiutil convert -format UDZO -o /Volumes/Macintosh HD/FinalImage /Volumes/ExternalHDD/tempimage.dmg asr imagescan -source /Volumes/Macintosh HD/FinalImage.dmg. This successfully worked and I then copied the image to an external hard drive. However, the problem I'm having is restoring the image created, either on the same machine that I created the image or on another Mac. Note: Both Mac disks are already formatted to AFPS and running High Sierra. When I enter the below commands, I get an error stating 'APFS inverter failed to invert the volume -invalid argument.'

Asr restore -source /Volumes/ExternalHDD/FinalImage.dmg -target /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ -erase I have a feeling I may be entering the incorrect target location when trying to do the restore but I may be completely wrong altogether. That's an interesting goal. One that most of us have been trying to move away from for some time. However, it's now back in Apple's guidance (Despite several engineers and other folks claiming that 'imaging is dead', but I digress). Let me ask this question.

Why do this from the recovery partition/CLI? Composer has the ability to capture your whole image as well as the recovery partition for deployment. Have you tried that? Simply get a machine setup the way you want, set it to target disk mode, connect it to a computer with Composer, and then walk through the 'Build OS Package' wizard.

Apple likes to claim that inconvenient processes are 'dead' so they can make changes without consideration for them. They told us that MDM was a requirement to scale out our macOS deployments when we complained about SKEL requiring it. I found that amusing since we had scaled up to 50% more than our current Mac count (our company has since split), so I know we don't 'need' MDM. That said, we have to have a method of wiping a system and reinstalling the OS to factory settings, since we aren't going to throw away computers when a person leaves the company. Laying down a base image in a minute through an automated process is significantly better than having technicians perform a full OS install manually (which we then have to patch if they aren't keeping it current). So even if I just use an empty base image to start with, I need a 'monolithic image' process to do that. I don't care how I get that base image, but having technicians manually install the OS each time is ridiculous.

I need automation and consistency to manage a modern enterprise Mac population. Getting in on this thread since I'm in the same boat. What I believe you ned to be running is identified by diskutil. Problem summary: While upgrading to a bigger SSD (960GB from Transcend- TA960GJDM500) in my MacBook Air mid-2011 (11”) (running macOS 10.13.6) the standard installation instructions from Transcend did not work.

The Disk Utility process failed at the last stage due to a reported ‘failure to ‘invert’ the new drive or partition’, due to an invalid argument. Apple support recommended formatting in the older format, not APFS.

I have not tried this. This seems to be a common issue with the new APFS file format. However, I can share a work-around: I have side-stepped the issue by loading a fresh OS onto the SSD and migrating data from a Time Machine backup and the original drive, both connected externally via a thunderbolt hub giving USB 3.0 ports, as follows: First I updated time machine backup on an external USB drive. Installed the new SSD in my MacBook 2.

Attached the old SSD to a built-in USB via the caddy supplied - must be built-in, not via a hub. Booted with cmd+R to ‘restore’ facility (provided by the old disk) 4. Installed a new copy of Mac OS High Sierra onto the new drive internally fitted. Before it invited me to set up; 5. Attached a thunderbolt hub with USB 3.0 ports to cut the time down. (It works with native USB 2.0, a lot slower!) 6.

Attached my backup drive with time machine files to a USB 3.0 port. During setup, I imported my data and accounts etc from the backup drive.

A Warning on iTunes: I was invited to update iTunes during the data import and the process crashed. Second time round I ‘skipped’ the update, completed the importation and THEN updated iTunes successfully. I have seen so many people stuck in this problem I hope this workaround helps someone out. I am now back to normal with the new drive running. I solved this for myself by simply mounting over this directory with another.dmg that has the right contents. So, I copied the contents of /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources to a folder, then created a disk image of that folder in Disk Utility, Scanned it for Restore, opened once to verify, then put it on the same storage location as the image to restore.

Before restoring the image with asr or diskutility, I do: hdiutil attach MyImages/Resources.dmg -mountpoint /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources This mounts over this location on the booted recovery OS with a version of the directory that doesn't have missing files. Now, the restores all work.

I love everything about this post. I was getting the 'failed to invert' error while trying to restore an AutoDMG-created 17G2208 image to a 2018 MBP, and the information quoted above was spot on, and extremely helpful to me. FWIW, I was able to successfully restore my 17G2208 image by ⌘-option-R booting into Mojave internet recovery, which appears to have a complete/correct set of files in its /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources folder. You'd better believe I'm keeping that 'hdiutil attach /Volumes/myShare/myFixes.dmg -mountpoint /System/Some/Broken/Recovery/Stuff' trick in my pocket, though.:) Thanks, MathUser!

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The reddit for Mac Professionals. Please keep all content and discussions professional.

Community Resources. ##osx-server on.

Useful Tools. Make OS images. Third-party update retrieval. Manage AutoPkg with a GUI. Mac imaging.

OS.pkg installer. User creation.pkg. Reposado GUI. Software Update deployment.

Manage Munki with a GUI. Munki reporting. Easily do stuff at login/boot. Advanced packaging Tool. Cache Apple software updates. Package Analyzer. Hoping someone can help!

We create system images of our computers using hdiutil in macOS Terminal. The string/command we've been using is: hdiutil create -srcdevice disk2 -format UDZO /Volumes/ExternalDiskNameHere/ImageNameHere.dmg and then to apply the image we use ASR in Terminal with this string/command: asr restore -source /Volumes/ExternalDiskNameHere/ImageNameHere.dmg -target /dev/disk2 –erase Now that 10.13.4 was released, somethings broken. We get an error of: Validating target. Done Validating source. Couldn't find container disk for image '/Volumes/Untitled/10134.dmg' Couldn't attach source image '/Volumes/Untitled/10134.dmg' Could not validate source - Invalid Argument Anyone know what changed? Or maybe how we should change it? Worked great up until this latest release.

Automate Asr For Mac Pro

I finally figured out a way to image 10.13 but haven’t done any since January so who knows if it still works or not. Used similar commands to yours and ran into the same issue you did. Got around it by booting into Recovery Mode and running the same commands manually. Seems that SIP or some other security feature is blocking it. Unfortunately no way to automate that process but luckily I only had a small number to image then manually typing in that long string of commands (I think I was able to do it in two commands, one connecting to some server mount, other kicking off the imaging). Afraid what’s going to happen next time I try.