Is there an open source alternative to diskutil available for macOS?

Question

Is there an open source alternative to diskutil available for macOS? I am hoping to find a command line program that perform the same core functions like:

• verify disk or volume

• repair disk or volume

• mount disk or volume

• partitioning disk etc.

• obtain info on a disk

• obtain activity on a disk

And maybe can perform more functions than the above. And which can be compiled to run on macOS.

Reason for this: I am trying to learn the internals of such disk functions. diskutil is not open source unfortunately. I just need something similar, I do not need support for HFS or APFS if this is a problem. Also, I have tried tracing back to the BSD's diskutil version on which macOS diskutil is based, but I cannot seem to find a way to simply obtain the binary for diskutil and the source code, it seems to be lumped together with the entire kernel's code on (https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/).

I do not have enough experience/knowledge to navigate the source tree.

Any suggestion will be really appreciated.

Answer 1

Not sure what's out there for macOS, but here is the source code for gparted: https://github.com/GNOME/gparted. It's written in C++.

Answer 2

No - not on macOS or Apple provided systems. If you want to start with diskutil nonetheless, there are tools to help guide you on this path, I would start with Hopper - a disassembler. You don’t need the source to see what Apple has shipped

• https://www.hopperapp.com/

Your learning might be faster though if you do not need Apple specific things like HFS or APFS by studying an OS to which all the source is open.