Live Usb For Centos On Mac

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How to boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox. This process will allow you to run your Portable Linux from the USB Flash Drive or external hard drive while still running from a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X Host. By default VirtualBox does not support USB Boot. However, this is easily attainable by mapping a virtual machine (.vmdk file) to the USB Drive.

First, head over to a CentOS Mirror and download your favourite ISO image. Next, have a USB stick handy and insert it into your Mac. Now open Terminal – it’s under Applications –.

  1. While you can connect an external CD/DVD drive to your Mac and boot from standard Linux live CDs and USBs, simply connecting a Linux live USB drive created by standard tools like Universal USB Installer and uNetbootin to a Mac won’t work. There are several ways around this.
  2. Select the OpenSuse.iso file you just downloaded using the 'Select Image' button. Plug a USB drive into you computer, if it's the only drive connected to your computer, it will be automatically selected. If not, select it. Warning: All data on the drive will be destroyed.
  3. Select the created USB bootable virtual machine from the right side panel and click on Start button given in the VirtualBox menu and that’s it. If you are using MacOS or Linux like Ubuntu then from step 6 to step 9 will be the same, the only difference is the method to create a.VDMK Raw file.
  4. Plug the USB into your Mac device. Once you do that, launch the terminal for the USB and search for the “diskutil list” by typing it in. Then, check for the “identifier” for your USB. Step Four: Now, please go back to the UNetbootin application.

VirtualBox Website: https://www.virtualbox.org

Updated: 11/14/2020 – Simplified steps, corrected paths, added sudo.

Boot a USB Flash Drive from VirtualBox (Windows Host)

  1. Download and run VirtualBox (Installing to the default path).
  2. You'll need to use the command line to perform steps 3-6,
    To open a command prompt;
    1.) From the Windows '⌕ Type here to search' box, type cmd.exe
    2.) Then click Run as administrator
  3. At the command prompt, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter to open the Windows Disk Management Tool.

    diskmgmt.msc

    Then, Identify your USB Disk #

  4. Now, back at the command line, type

    cd %programfiles%oraclevirtualbox

  5. Replacing # with your USB Disk number from step 3, type

    VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename '%USERPROFILE%'.VirtualBoxusb.vmdk -rawdisk .PhysicalDrive#

  6. To start VirtualBox as Admin, type

    start virtualbox

  7. Click New, and then proceed to Create a New Virtual Machine.
  8. When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk. Then, browse to your %USERPROFILE%.VirtualBox folder, and select the usb.vmdk file.
  9. Once done creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.

If all goes well, VirtualBox should now be emulating, booting, and running your USB device from within Windows.

Getting Persistence to work in VirtualBox (Windows)

At first the USB flash drive might not work exactly like it does when booted natively. Things like Ubuntu's casper persistent feature won't work. Some distributions might not even boot, or will boot with errors. This is because the volumes on the device are mounted by Windows, preventing VirtualBox from gaining full access. In order to fix these issues, you can use a tool called LockDismount. Then simply run the tool (using the following steps), prior to starting the Virtual Machine that is tied to your USB.

1. Download the LockDismount tool

2. Launch the tool right before starting your VirtualBox VM

3. Select your USB from the drop-list, then Press Lock it!

Live Centos Usb

(optionally you can check Force Dismount)

Now your flash drive should be able to boot in VirtualBox exactly as it does when booted natively on a physical machine. 😉

Live Usb For Centos On Mac

Centos Usb Drive

Boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox (Linux Host)

The following was performed from a running Ubuntu Operating environment. The same should work for most Debian/Ubuntu Linux based environments.

  1. Open a Terminal and type sudo apt install virtualbox

    sudo apt install virtualbox

  2. Next, Type sudo fdisk -l

    sudo fdisk -l

    (note which device is your USB drive I.E. /dev/sdx)

  3. Replacing x with your actual device letter found from step 2, type

    sudo vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdx

  4. Type sudo virtualbox to start the program, and proceed create a New Virtual Machine.
  5. When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk, then browse to your Home directory and select usb.vmdk.
  6. Once you've finished creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.

Live Usb For Centos On Mac Catalina

If all went smoothly, you should now be running your USB flash drive from VirtualBox on the Linux Host.

Boot from a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox (Mac OS X)

For

Centos Live Usb On Mac

  1. Download and install VirtualBox for OS X Hosts via the .dmg file.
  2. Open a Terminal and type diskutil list

    diskutil list

    (make note of which disk is your USB drive I.E. /dev/disk#)

  3. Replacing # with the disk number of your USB drive, type

    diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

  4. Again, replacing # with your actual disk number, type

    vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk#

  5. Once more, replacing # with the disk number, type

    diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

  6. Finally, to start the program with root access, type

    sudo virtualbox

  7. Next, Proceed to create a New Virtual Machine.
    When prompted for a Virtual Hard Disk, tick use existing hard disk.
    Then, browse to your Home directory and select usb.vmdk.
  8. Once finished creating your New Virtual Machine, click Start.

Live Usb For Centos On Mac Virtualbox

You should now be booting from your USB flash drive on the Mac OS X host using VirtualBox, while retaining the ability to boot from the drive natively as well.

Centos 8 Usb Install

How to Boot From a USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox published under USB Virtual Machine Emulation