Create Bootable ISO with macOS Catalina 10.15 for VMware Workstation 15.5

Last week I published a video on how to create a bootable ISO file that contained macOS Catalina 10.15 so you can boot into VMWare Workstation 15.5. During the video there were many terminal commands. I promised that I will post up all the commands as a cheat sheet, so you can copy and paste into the terminal to make life easy. Here is the code used during the video below:

btnhd#:> hdiutil attach /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/Catalina

btnhd#:> hdiutil create -o /tmp/CatalinaBase.cdr -size 9000m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J

btnhd#:> hdiutil attach /tmp/CatalinaBase.cdr.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build

btnhd#:> asr restore -source /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/install_build -noprompt -noverify -erase

btnhd#:> rm /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Installation/Packages

btnhd#:> cp -R /Volumes/Catalina/Packages /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Installation

btnhd#:> hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/

btnhd#:> hdiutil detach /Volumes/Catalina/

btnhd#:> mv /tmp/CatalinaBase.cdr.dmg /tmp/BaseSystem.dmg

#Restore the 10.15 Installer’s BaseSystem.dmg into file system and place custom BaseSystem.dmg into the root

btnhd#:> hdiutil create -o /tmp/Catalina.cdr -size 9000m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J

btnhd#:> hdiutil attach /tmp/Catalina.cdr.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build

btnhd#:> asr restore -source /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/install_build -noprompt -noverify -erase

btnhd#:> cp /tmp/BaseSystem.dmg /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System

btnhd#:> hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/

btnhd#:> rm /tmp/BaseSystem.dmg

btnhd#:> hdiutil convert /tmp/Catalina.cdr.dmg -format UDTO -o /tmp/Catalina.iso

btnhd#:> mv /tmp/Catalina.iso.cdr ~/Desktop/Catalina.iso

btnhd#:> rm /tmp/Catalina.cdr.dmg

One more thing, you will need to get a copy on the unlocker-master files to enable VMware Workstation 15 to run macOS as a guest virtual machine. Go to github.com/btnhd to grab the script.