apple silicon – Writing to ext4 drive on an M3 macbook operating macOS 14.4 Sonoma

I am utilizing an M3 silicon macbook operating macOS 14.4 Sonoma.

I need to write information to an exterior USB exhausting drive formatted with an ext4 filesystem.

Associated questions

• This 2020 reply hyperlinks to an answer that makes use of VirtualBox. However, VirtualBox would not work on 14.4; Additionally, within the feedback customers report that the linked VirtualBox setup directions didn’t even work on earlier model. Feedback additionally warn to not use the “Paragon” paid resolution as this will end in information loss.
• This 2022 reply in the end hyperlinks to macfuse, which supplies your learn however not write acess to ext4 drives.
• I can corroborate this query, which notes that configuring QEMU by hand to achieve the ext4 drive through a VM is… tough. It is reply appears to say use macfuse, however I’ve solely been capable of get read-only mounts this manner.
• The 2022 reply to an identical query on the M1 platform has ext4fuse as an answer, however this solely provides learn entry.
• A decade in the past, this reply says ext4fuse through homebrew (once more the read-only resolution for M3 in 2024). This 2016 reply confirms that ext4fuse doesn’t have write help.
• Impressed by This 2017 query I made a decision to place apart my issues of knowledge loss and check out pairing the -o rw+ command line mount possibility with ext4fuse. However, as documented, ext4fuse doesn’t help this selection but.

The place I’ve gotten to this point:

0. These steps labored for read-only entry, for me.

1. (Mac/osx/ext4)fuse-based options now not work for M3 macs, and there is not any secure resolution on the horizon. Constructing one thing from scratch with unstable ext4 write help is not within the playing cards, as I am unable to afford information loss.

2. I opted to attempt to mount through a Linux digital machine. I spent a day failing to manually get a linux VM operating through QEMU (put in through homebrew). I gave up up and loaded up a Debian 12 VM through the UTM app.

That is the place I am caught.

So, on an M3 mac I am unable to use (mac)fuse, or VM options that depend on VirtualBox. I am unable to discover an up-to-date walkthrough doing this manually with qemu, however I can run UTM prebuilt Debian photographs.

Additional analysis

• I am undecided what is going on on in this thread, however possibly it is not attainable to see USB units in Linux VMs on M3 macs? The thread mentions phrases I do not see in my very own UTM interface so possibly it’s outdated.
• This web page says “Solely jailbroken or exploit-based installs of UTM help USB sharing. UTM SE doesn’t help USB sharing.” This means I will be unable to see my ext4 USB drive from the Debian VM? However, it is not clear to me that I would like this. The USB drive is evidently accessible, as ext4fuse can mount it read-only. Certainly there may be some method to mount it RW on the Debian VM with out making an attempt to get a jailbroken UTM set up working?
• This web page appears to point USB sharing choices was accessible within the UTM configuration dialog. These are absent in mine, presumably for causes famous above.

Puzzling by means of

• Returning to the feedback part for the read-only macfuse tutorial, there’s a small ray of hope in that some customers report UTM Linux VMs with the ability to detect USB drives on M2 macs. However, this isn’t working for me presently.
• diskutil listing (I pulled diskutil from hombrew IIRC) confirms the drive is accessible as a tool in macOS, at /dev/disk4on my system. So I’ve a tool I can entry, no rooting the macbook required. I simply must get this system file into /dev/ within the UTM Debian VM, however how?

Any concepts on the following steps to attempt?