Attach one .dmg file on different computers at the same time (hdiutil attach)

Question

I have a question about "hdiutil attach"

I've "created" (ctrl+c/ctrl+v) one bash script to execute some .app automatically.

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First im mounting shared folder:

mount_smbfs -o nobrowse //SERVER/share "/Users/user_name/APPNAME/18"

and attaching with the help of "hdiutil" the .dmg file
(you must attach .dmg in order to install this app :) )

hdiutil attach -nobrowse /Users/user_name/APPNAME/18/appname.dmg

so far so good. But! if im going to deploy it on multiple end-devices, i suppose its going to cause some issues.

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So that's my question: Is it possible to attach the same file on multiple Computers at the same time? And if so, is it possible to execute this file from them?

Thanks for yout help!

Answer 1

Is it possible to attach the same file on multiple Computers at the same time?

This is possible if -- AND ONLY IF -- the disk image is read-only.

Most filesystems -- including HFS+ -- are designed with the assumption that the system mounting the filesystem has exclusive access to the filesystem. Attempting to mount a HFS+ filesystem as read/write from multiple systems will likely result in multiple systems trying to update data in the same locations on disk, causing catastrophic filesystem corruption.

The safest way to ensure that the image is always mounted read-only will be to create it as a compressed disk image, or write-protect it directly on the server. If these options are not available, use

hdiutil attach -readonly ...

to mount it on the client.