Extracting diskarbitrationd and storagekitd from IPSW — possible?

[J4M3S704]

Hi all,

I’m trying to dig into the internals of macOS and was wondering if anyone has experience extracting specific system daemons from an IPSW. In particular, I’m looking for diskarbitrationd and storagekitd from a macOS 26.x IPSW.

I know IPSWs can be mounted and contain several payloads (OS.dmg, kernelcache, etc.), but I’m not sure where these two daemons actually live in the structure—or whether they’re even present in a form that can be pulled out and inspected.

Questions:

1. Are diskarbitrationd and storagekitd included directly within the macOS IPSW payload, or are they generated during installation?
2. If they are included, which DMG or folder hierarchy inside the IPSW contains them?
3. Any recommended tools for cleanly extracting system daemons from IPSWs? (ipsw, kmutil, 7-Zip, etc.)
4. Are these binaries signed in a way that prevents inspection or disassembly?

If anyone has done something similar—extracting LaunchDaemons or low-level system services from an IPSW—I'd appreciate any guidance.

Thanks!

 

[bogdanw]

ipsw files are archives. You extract the largest dmg, mount it and find diskarbitrationd and storagekitd in the same place as in the installed macOS:
/usr/libexec/diskarbitrationd
/usr/libexec/storagekitd

/usr/ is hidden. How to Show Hidden Files on a Mac https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/show-hidden-files-on-a-mac/