How to Read and Edit an ext4 Partition on macOS Using e2fsprogs

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A developer locked out of a Raspberry Pi needed to update SSH keys on its SD card but found macOS unable to mount the ext4 root filesystem. Without a Linux machine or VM available, they used e2fsprogs — installable via Homebrew — which implements the ext4 format entirely in userspace and can operate directly on raw device nodes. Tools like debugfs allowed read and write access to the partition without mounting it, enabling the authorized_keys file to be replaced. However, the process revealed two key pitfalls: the cd command does not persist across multiple debugfs -R flags, and writing directly via debugfs bypasses the ext4 journal, which can cause e2fsck to revert changes during a subsequent consistency check. The author advises always using full paths in debugfs scripts and replaying the journal before running fsck after any direct block-level edits.

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