RPI Burner

A macOS CLI tool for creating custom Raspberry Pi SD card images with Cloud Init support. Detects removable disks, burns .img files, and injects cloud-config — all from the terminal.

Prerequisites

• macOS (uses diskutil and dd)
• Python 3.10+
• An SD card reader with a card inserted

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/open-horizon-services/utility-raspberry-pi-image-builder.git
cd utility-raspberry-pi-image-builder
python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

List available disks, then burn:

rpi-burner list
sudo rpi-burner burn image.img -d /dev/disk4 --cloud-init config.yaml

Requires sudo — disk write operations need root access.

Usage

rpi-burner list                                    # List removable disks
rpi-burner burn <image> [options]                   # Burn image to disk

Options

Flag	Description
-d, --disk PATH	Target disk device path (e.g., /dev/disk4). Prompts interactively if omitted.
--cloud-init PATH	Cloud-init config file (YAML) to inject onto boot partition.
--confirm	Skip the confirmation prompt (use with caution).
--no-eject	Don't eject the disk after writing.

Cloud Init

Provide a YAML cloud-config file to configure the Pi on first boot. The file is written to the FAT32 boot partition as user-data.

#cloud-config
hostname: rpi-hostname
users:
  - name: pi
    sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
    shell: /bin/bash
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AAAAB3... your-key
runcmd:
  - echo "Ready" > /home/pi/booted.txt

See samples/ for more examples: Wi-Fi, static IP, SSH keys.

License

Apache 2.0