ESXi 5 Mac OS X Unlocker

[MSoK]

One teensy-weensy point I haven't formally released 1.3.0 yet!  I will look into releasing it next week.

Donk,

 

Sorry for jumping the gun, should have checked with you first, let me know if you need me to do any further testing before general release.

 

Cheers,

MSoK.

So i had some more time to troubleshoot this from the beginning and it was working surviving reboots.  It wasn't until i passed through my ATI video card and usb 2.0 hub to the mavericks VM that vsphere managment started crapping out .  So i guess its only buggy if i am using pci passthrough.  Anyways, thanks for the hard work on this donk!  I will be glad to beta test any new releases.  Not sure why the pci passthrough thing messes it up, but having 3 VMs each with their own video card passed through was badass enough.  Now one of them is a mac!

Ted,

 

Sounds like you are pushing the envelope pretty close to the edge, graphics card pass-through for OS X seems to be very fussy, so have a look at the following thread, it might give you some pointers:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/285733-graphics-acceleration-in-esxi-51-and-os-x-mountain-lion-vm/?p=1883583

[Tedstevens]

Donk,

 

Sorry for jumping the gun, should have checked with you first, let me know if you need me to do any further testing before general release.

 

Cheers,

MSoK.

Ted,

 

Sounds like you are pushing the envelope pretty close to the edge, graphics card pass-through for OS X seems to be very fussy, so have a look at the following thread, it might give you some pointers:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/285733-graphics-acceleration-in-esxi-51-and-os-x-mountain-lion-vm/?p=1883583

 

Thanks for the link!  It actually works great on 5.0, i was just hoping to get it working on 5.5.  I ended up looking up what cards "worked out of box" on this list:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.9_Seeds#AMD.2FATI (hint: there is only one) and picked one up off ebay and it worked great!  Full 2560x1440 on my 27in monitor!  Basically you just need something that mac has drivers built-in so you arent messing with custom kexts and the like.  

 

I actually was misusing your local.sh thinking it was the new unlocker script and running it directly.  I didnt realize i was supposed to put it in my startup directory and replace the existing one.  It sounds like that solved nadster's issues so i will try that and report back.  

 

Interestingly enough, i too am using the same board as nadster (supermicro X8DTH-6F) for my main build and am on my 3rd board now.  These things seem super unreliable, i had one come in with bent CPU pins (not SMs fault), one had completely non-functioning nics and now my replacement wont boot esxi with more than 12 gb of ram in it!  It just hangs at "relocating modules and starting up kernel".  Really frustrating.  While i have been waiting on mobo RMAs, i have been using a dell T7500 for testing this on.  Im very close to having the ultimate setup: One win7 VM+gpu passthrough attached to one 27in monitor & one mavericks VM+gpu passthrough on the other 27in monitor all controlled via synergy! http://synergy-foss.org/

[Tedstevens]

I tried the new local.sh on ESXi 5.5 1331820 (removed the ^M's)

sed -e 's/\r//g' local.sh > local.sh.new

cp local.sh.new local.sh

chmod 755 local.sh

 

reboot

 

 

Thanks for that!!  I thought you were one of those cli freaks that uses sed to overly-complicate simple things.  Turned out to be a nice little trick to remove the ^M characters at the end of every line =)  Using this method my host appears to be stable so far (8 hours, no crashes/errors) with dual gpu passthrough running!  Great thread, thanks guys

[Donk]

Donk,

 

Sorry for jumping the gun, should have checked with you first, let me know if you need me to do any further testing before general release.

 

Cheers,

MSoK.

 

Just finishing up the packaging for 1.3.0. No changes since you tested apart from 2 simple shell scripts to copy and remove the local.sh file.

[Donk]

Version 1.3.0 uploaded. Fixes are for ESXi only. 

[MSoK]

Version 1.3.0 uploaded. Fixes are for ESXi only. 

Great work thanks Donk, just for information I have been testing on behalf of Donk Version 1.3.0 on ESXi 5.5.0 for some time, and it works very  well, even survived the upgrade to ESXi 5.5.0 U1. Please follow the instructions, you need to set a persistent scratch location on one of your Datastores, especially if you are using one of the custom ISO's supplied by HP, Dell or IBM.

[dobruny.developeruch]

After success patch of the VMware ESXi, 5.5.0, 1623387 (ESXi-5.5U1-1623589-RollupISO-standard)

# ./install.sh
VMware Unlocker 1.3.0
===============================
Copyright: Dave Parsons 2011-14
Installing local.sh
Success - please now restart the server!

have next error messages:

• during load Mevericks iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin13_64Guest' is not supported.
• during load Mountain Lion iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin12_64Guest' is not supported.

[Donk]

 

After success patch of the VMware ESXi, 5.5.0, 1623387 (ESXi-5.5U1-1623589-RollupISO-standard)

# ./install.sh
VMware Unlocker 1.3.0
===============================
Copyright: Dave Parsons 2011-14
Installing local.sh
Success - please now restart the server!

have next error messages:

• during load Mevericks iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin13_64Guest' is not supported.
• during load Mountain Lion iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin12_64Guest' is not supported.

 

Are you trying to use vCenter to start them? Id so please read the readme.txt - it is not possible to use vCenter to manage OS X guest unless on real Apple hardware. You need to directly connect to the ESXi host and start the guests.

[dobruny.developeruch]

Are you trying to use vCenter to start them? Id so please read the readme.txt - it is not possible to use vCenter to manage OS X guest unless on real Apple hardware. You need to directly connect to the ESXi host and start the guests.

I have tried to use vCenter and directly connect to the ESXi host to start them, but have hangs loading in case with "directly connect to the ESXi host" with both system.

 

[Donk]

I have tried to use vCenter and directly connect to the ESXi host to start them, but have hangs loading in case with "directly connect to the ESXi host" with both system.

 

 

Just to double check you rebooted the server after installing the unlocker? If you did then it looks like you have not got bootable media for the guest.

[4insmac]

Thanks for that!!  I thought you were one of those cli freaks that uses sed to overly-complicate simple things.  Turned out to be a nice little trick to remove the ^M characters at the end of every line =)  Using this method my host appears to be stable so far (8 hours, no crashes/errors) with dual gpu passthrough running!  Great thread, thanks guys

Congrats Ted!

sounds like interesting and fun setup. would you mind sharing details what chipset, exakt graphics cards incl BIOS version, CPU, RAM work for you.

thx

[dobruny.developeruch]

 

After success patch of the VMware ESXi, 5.5.0, 1623387 (ESXi-5.5U1-1623589-RollupISO-standard)

# ./install.sh
VMware Unlocker 1.3.0
===============================
Copyright: Dave Parsons 2011-14
Installing local.sh
Success - please now restart the server!

have next error messages:

• during load Mevericks iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin13_64Guest' is not supported.
• during load Mountain Lion iso image - The guest operating system 'darwin12_64Guest' is not supported.

 

 

 

Just to double check you rebooted the server after installing the unlocker? If you did then it looks like you have not got bootable media for the guest.

 

I have solved my problem after several days research with this article http://techiezone.rottigni.net/2013/11/installing-mavericks-on-esxi-5-1/, problem was in Mevericks and Mountain Lion dmg files.

[Tedstevens]

Congrats Ted!

sounds like interesting and fun setup. would you mind sharing details what chipset, exakt graphics cards incl BIOS version, CPU, RAM work for you.

thx

here is a youtube vid of the setup: 

 

My original setup was on the dell t7500, but i have also had success on my supermicro and gigabyte setups:

http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-x8dth-6f-motherboard-review-dual-lga-1366-xeon-lsi-sas2008-dual-ioh36-7-pcie-slots-ipmi-2-0/

http://www.servethehome.com/Workstation-detail/gigabyte-ga-7pesh3-review-highend-workstation-server-dual-socket-motherboard/

 

compatible videocards taken from this list:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.9_Seeds#AMD.2FATI

 

it really helps to have an remote KVM console for the inevitable PSOD troubleshooting when fiddling around with this kind of stuff

[Rubyducky]

So does 1.4.0 fix the issues that come up when an ESXi server is managed by vCenter? 

[Donk]

So does 1.4.0 fix the issues that come up when an ESXi server is managed by vCenter? 

 

Actually it is V 1.3.0 and yes I used a different way of building the patch using the scratch partition rather than the in-memory visorfs system.

 

It still does not allow vCenter to power on/off etc. as that is a vCemter function not ESXi and I do not have anything to patch that capability.

[Rubyducky]

Actually it is V 1.3.0 and yes I used a different way of building the patch using the scratch partition rather than the in-memory visorfs system.

 

It still does not allow vCenter to power on/off etc. as that is a vCemter function not ESXi and I do not have anything to patch that capability.

My bad! In any case, I ran the patch from a datastore (and verified a scratch partition existed), restarted, but I'm stuck at the Apple logo and spinner...

[twisted302]

Hey guys, I'm new to this stuff just wanted to know if you guys could help, i'm trying to put the 1.3.0 unlocker on my ESXi 5.5

 

Im trying to do /vmfs/volumes/datastore/esxi/unlock/esxi/install.sh

 

I get....    cp: can't stat 'local.sh' : no such file or directory

 

Ive chmod +x install.sh and the local.sh and I Dont get permission denied, anything else I can do or try?

Any help would be awesome. sorry for being a noob! 

[MSoK]

Hey guys, I'm new to this stuff just wanted to know if you guys could help, i'm trying to put the 1.3.0 unlocker on my ESXi 5.5

 

Im trying to do /vmfs/volumes/datastore/esxi/unlock/esxi/install.sh

 

I get....    cp: can't stat 'local.sh' : no such file or directory

 

Ive chmod +x install.sh and the local.sh and I Dont get permission denied, anything else I can do or try?

Any help would be awesome. sorry for being a noob! 

twisted302,

 

A couple of possibilities, firstly you need to run the install.sh command from within the directory it is stored in with the following syntax: ./install.sh

 

Secondly have you created a persistent scratch location, in vSphere Client select your ESXi host and go to Configuration tab, and under Software select Advanced Settings and then ScratchConfig and add a location on your Datastore in ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation. I always create a .scratch directory on my first datastore, the dot makes it hidden. Unfortunately the location cannot use your common name, so you will have to have a dig around using either WinSCP or PuTTY to confirm the hexadecimal for your common name.

[twisted302]

Thanks for the reply MSoK!!

 

~ # cd /vmfs/volumes/53502522-95a20c89-8f64-001d09638d64/esxi/unlock/esxi

/vmfs/volumes/53502522-95a20c89-8f64-001d09638d64/esxi/unlock/esxi # ./install.sh

VMware Unlocker 1.3.0

===============================

Copyright: Dave Parsons 2011-14

Installing local.sh

Success - please now restart the server!

 

ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation is created and set too .scratch

asfor the common name i was little confused.

 

Now what is my next step? 

[twisted302]

When I go to boot the VM and run from bootable I get the apple logo and then a circle with a cross.

[Donk]

My bad! In any case, I ran the patch from a datastore (and verified a scratch partition existed), restarted, but I'm stuck at the Apple logo and spinner...

 

 

When I go to boot the VM and run from bootable I get the apple logo and then a circle with a cross.

 

Hi

 

Can you give us a few more details please:

 

1. Server CPU being used

2. Version of OS X being used

3. How you created the OS X bootable media

4. Attach a copy of vmware.log from the guest folder (Please do NOT post inline on the reply)

5. Login to the support console and run:

ls -la vmx

and post output

[Rubyducky]

1. Server CPU being used

-Xeon E3-1245v3

2. Version of OS X being used

-10.9.2

3. How you created the OS X bootable media

-This is actually a converted Workstation 10 VM (I used the built-in ESXi converter). Currently I'm running nested virtualization with Workstation 10 inside a Windows VM. 

4. Attach a copy of vmware.log from the guest folder (Please do NOT post inline on the reply)

-http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=EgztRNiM

5. Login to the support console and run:

ls -la vmx

and post output

-No such file or directory, should I be running it in "/"?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

EDIT: Actually, I booted from the install ISO and it worked. Something must have not transferred from Workstation properly. I believe you can create a "SATA" type disk in Workstation now (and that's what I did), and it may not transfer to ESXi properly...

[twisted302]

1. Server CPU being used

2x intel Xeon Cpu L5320 @ 1.86GHz

2. Version of OS X being used

10.9.2

3. How you created the OS X bootable media

Ive made a bootable USB and I also tried from NAS share

4. Attach a copy of vmware.log from the guest folder (Please do NOT post inline on the reply)

Attached

5. Login to the support console and run:

~ # ls -la vmx

ls: vmx: No such file or directory

 

 

-Also attached is what i see when I either boot from USB or NAS share

vmware log file.rar

[Rubyducky]

Ok yeah, it was the Workstation conversion. I had to create a new VM on ESXi and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the Workstation vmdk over to ESXi. Looks good so far, vCenter seems to still be working! Thanks so much for your work!

[Donk]

Ok yeah, it was the Workstation conversion. I had to create a new VM on ESXi and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the Workstation vmdk over to ESXi. Looks good so far, vCenter seems to still be working! Thanks so much for your work!

 

Yep - Converter has no knowledge of OS X. It may work if you set the guest to a different OS type first then change it back in ESXi. anyway pleased you got t sorted.

5. Login to the support console and run:

~ # ls -la vmx

ls: vmx: No such file or directory

 

 

Ooops - should have been ls -la /bin/vmx

 

I think that your media is not bootable as this was in the log file.

2014-05-04T01:44:44.248Z| vcpu-0| I120: [msg.Backdoor.OsNotFound] No operating system was found. If you have an operating system installation disc, you can insert the disc into the system's CD-ROM drive and restart the virtual machine.

 

How did you create it?