ESXi 5 Mac OS X Unlocker

[Dmitry R]

Dmitry,

 

Unless you are using Apple hardware, i.e. Mini Mac's or Mac Pro's you cannot use vCenter and any of the related services like HA and DRS.

I've finally decided to set the VM type as CentOS x64, Installed Clover and fakesmc.kext to EFI partition and have now all the vCenter features available. I was afraid that where will be a kind of a performance degradation, but everything's fine.

 

Dmitry

[MSoK]

Dmitry,

 

Thanks for the update, I am glad you found a solution, I should perhaps of clarified my original quote, and said: If you want to run Vanilla OS X virtual machines with vCenter Server functionality you need to run ESXi hosts on Apple hardware.

 

MSoK.

[reebzor]

Just wanted to post that I updated to 10.8.5 successfully on ESXi 5.1 U1 with no issues

[wally007]

Just wanted to post that I updated to 10.8.5 successfully on ESXi 5.1 U1 with no issues

Thanks for letting us know. I was just about to ask :-) 

 

Has anything changed ? 

[Wenle Z.]

I have an Machine with Intel i7 3770, non-K version. Can I use ESX5.1 and passthrough the iGPU HD4000 to the OSx VM?  Or i do need a dedicated video card?

[MSoK]

Wenle Z,

 

I think currently the answer is probably no, sqreszcz has done some great work on GPU pass through, but needed a specific dedicated AMD graphics card to make it work, see link below, although this is not in line with the vGPU support offered by VMware in vSphere 5.1 but extended support is being included in ESXi 5.5, see the extract from the "What's New in VMware vSphere 5.5 Platform" below:

 

"vSphere 5.1 was the first vSphere release to provide support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics—virtual graphics processing unit (vGPU)—inside of a virtual machine. That support was limited to only NVIDIA-based GPUs. With vSphere 5.5, vGPU support has been expanded to include both Intel- and AMD-based GPUs. Virtual machines with graphic-intensive workloads or applications that typically have required hardware-based GPUs can now take advantage of additional vGPU vendors, makes and models."

 

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

[Donk]

New version 1.2.0 released for latest hosted products. See first post for details.

[wally007]

I just wanted to update everyone about vSphere and about adding a Unlocked host to vCenter ( I was using vCenter Virtual Appliance )

 

-Settings were accessible and I was able to change all setting for all my Mac VM's via vCenter.

-I was able to passthrough EyeTV DTT and EyeTV SAT USB TV tuners and EyeTV software worked as perfect as it did on real Mac Pro.

-I was NOT able to turn ON the VM or restart it via vCenter. I either had to VNC into the virtual Mac and reboot it or log into the host and reboot it that way.

-I was able to schedule Mac VM to autostart with the host and shut down with the host. It worked as expected.

-I was NOT able to clone Mac VMs. This was my biggest let down :-)

 

The reason why in the end I removed the Unlocked host from vCenter ( although I doubt it was a problem of Unlocker ) was that when I shut down the host from within vCenter, i ALWAYS lost access to iLOM ( Intel vPro or AMT )

I've never experienced anything like this but in the end it is easily reproducible. When host was shut down WHILE paired to vCenter, Intel's AMT would become unresponsive after power down. (so I had no way to turn it back on). I've been banging my head for couple of day now and reinstalled ESXi twice and by doing everything step-by-step, pattern became clear. 

I dont know what kind of power management is built into vCenter but its obviously doing something abnormal with ATX power management because it completely shuts down power to MOBO after power off.

[MSoK]

Just a quick heads up with the recent release of ESXi 5.5 (Build 1331820), so far OS X 10.8.5 runs and installs fine using the latest unlocker (1.2.0) from Donk and Zenith432, I will test 10.7 and 10.9 and update once tested.

[Donk]

Just a quick heads up with the recent release of ESXi 5.5 (Build 1331820), so far OS X 10.8.5 runs and installs fine using the latest unlocker (1.2.0) from Donk and Zenith432, I will test 10.7 and 10.9 and update once tested.

 

Thanks for testing it out. I can also confirm it works OK on ESXi 5.5. Existing limitations regarding vCenter to manage the patched host remain.

[ipas]

Unfortunately I have some critical problems with osx-unlocker version 1.2 on Vsphere ESXi 5.5. I got two issues:

 

1. The management webservice seems unstable. I got a "503 Service unavailable" after a boot of the esxi server. When I restart de management interfaces in the console the webservice is sometimes running.

2. Opening a console in VCenter Web Client does not work anymore. Got this error: "Unable to connect to the MKS: The operation is not allowed in the current state". Sometimes I got this error also: "Unable to connect to the MKS: A general system error occurred: Invalid response code: 503 Service Unavailable".

After uninstalling the unlocker these problems disappear.

[Donk]

Unfortunately I have some critical problems with osx-unlocker version 1.2 on Vsphere ESXi 5.5. I got two issues:

 

1. The management webservice seems unstable. I got a "503 Service Unstable" after a boot of the esxi server. When I restart de management interfaces in the console the webservice is sometimes running.

2. Opening a console in VCenter Web Client does not work anymore. Got this error: "Unable to connect to the MKS: The operation is not allowed in the current state". Sometimes I got this error also: "Unable to connect to the MKS: A general system error occurred: Invalid response code: 503 Service Unavailable".

After uninstalling the unlocker these problems disappear.

 You cannot really use these patched ESXi hosts with vCenter. This has been a limitation from day 1.

[ipas]

A bit true but the only limitation Vcenter had with with version 5.1 and earlier is not having the ability to start/stop a OSX VM with Vcenter. I could easily bypass this connecting directing to the patched host using the Vsphere Client. The management interface of the host itself seems unstable now and the Vcenter webconsole of every VM of the patched host is not working anymore.

[Donk]

A bit true but the only limitation Vcenter had with with version 5.1 and earlier is not having the ability to start/stop a OSX VM with Vcenter. I could easily bypass this connecting directing to the patched host using the Vsphere Client. The management interface of the host itself seems unstable now and the Vcenter webconsole of every VM of the patched host is not working anymore.

 

I understand that there are additional issues but frankly the patcher only adds some strings to 3 files. I suspect the vCenter host agents are doing some checks, but I have no idea what they are. To be brutally honest the work was only for free ESXi and was opportunistic as the patching was the same as needed for Workstation which was my original aim.

 

I will update the front page stating this. Thanks for the feedback.

[ipas]

Indeed.. and I'm very happy with this patch anyway. I will test the configuration with another machine with different hardware to be sure. If there is another outcome i'll let you know.

 

... tested this on the other esx server: Have not seen the 503 error, but also got the console issue.

[cshotton]

Allegedly ESXi 5.5 includes support for Mac OS X 10.8.x. Yet my new 5.5 install failed completely at booting Mac OS X VMs until I reapplied Unlocker 1.2. Is this expected behavior? What is behind VMware saying it's compatible with 10.8.x? Did I miss something?

[Donk]

Allegedly ESXi 5.5 includes support for Mac OS X 10.8.x. Yet my new 5.5 install failed completely at booting Mac OS X VMs until I reapplied Unlocker 1.2. Is this expected behavior? What is behind VMware saying it's compatible with 10.8.x? Did I miss something?

Yes VMware do support ESXi and OS X but only on Apple hardware. The unlocker opens that up to all hardware.

[ebob9]

Unfortunately I have some critical problems with osx-unlocker version 1.2 on Vsphere ESXi 5.5. I got two issues:

 

1. The management webservice seems unstable. I got a "503 Service unavailable" after a boot of the esxi server. When I restart de management interfaces in the console the webservice is sometimes running.

2. Opening a console in VCenter Web Client does not work anymore. Got this error: "Unable to connect to the MKS: The operation is not allowed in the current state". Sometimes I got this error also: "Unable to connect to the MKS: A general system error occurred: Invalid response code: 503 Service Unavailable".

After uninstalling the unlocker these problems disappear.

 

I am having similar issues to what ipas mentioned, but in a non-vCenter environment.

• Random failures in vSphere thick/legacy client (usually HTTP 503 errors or full disconnects).
• Console sessions would never open for powered-on VMs (not just OSX VMs). Shutting down a VM, then connecting to console works until you disconnect.

This was all working fine on ESX 5.1

 

I upgraded my ESXi 5.1 system to 5.5, then re-applied the unlock 1.2 patch. After the patch, these issues began to appear. After a while, I booted back to the altbootbank to go back to 5.1. Everything worked fine from that point.

 

My first thought was that this was a generic ESX 5.5 issue, and not related to the unlocker. After a few days of searches, no mention of this issue on the ESX forums. It still could be a generic 5.5 issue, but the lack of mention on other places worries me that it might be more than just correlation.

[Donk]

There are issues like this documented when upgrading from 5.0 to 5.1. You will need to see if there are any events in the client. To recover you need to restart the management services on the host. The code in the unlocker for ESXi hasn't changed for a long time, so it is either a coincidence or something is integrity checking the vmx executable files and shutting things down.

 

UPDATE: There are other issues which may be related to the client machine and the Windows TCP stack parameters. Also some proxy software can cause the issue. Whatever is happening I will need more information.

[wally007]

I am having similar issues to what ipas mentioned, but in a non-vCenter environment.

• Random failures in vSphere thick/legacy client (usually HTTP 503 errors or full disconnects).

 

I had exact problem on yet unpatched host so i do not think it has anything to do with unlocking patch. Its very obvious that Windows Client received next to no love from VMWARE while all efforts were put into the Web Client. ( is it going to be default client in ESXi 6 ? )

 

Anyway, I've been running 2 Mac VMs and 2 Windows VMs on 5.5 host for 24 hours without any stability problems so far. I've yet to test vCenter install but will do the install this weekend  to see if it has really implemented further checks. That would be very unfortunate

[Donk]

I had exact problem on yet unpatched host so i do not think it has anything to do with unlocking patch. Its very obvious that Windows Client received next to no love from VMWARE while all efforts were put into the Web Client. ( is it going to be default client in ESXi 6 ? )

 

Anyway, I've been running 2 Mac VMs and 2 Windows VMs on 5.5 host for 24 hours without any stability problems so far. I've yet to test vCenter install but will do the install this weekend  to see if it has really implemented further checks. That would be very unfortunate

 

 

I just made a change to config.xml for hostd and it has broken the service. Clean ESXi 5.5.0 no patches or messing about with it. Looking at the stack logs hostd daemon is faulting. I think this is a general issue.

[duke^Coke]

Hi, i have now tried for days to install osx in esxi. I have installed the unlocker and i have tried with the vmdk files from the Soul Dev Team and i have tried to boot from usb and from iso, but every time i get the same error: Error Loading Kernelcache: 

 

 

What have i done wrong?

 

 

EDIT: I fixed it the moment i posted this. I forgot to select OSX x64 in settings

[cshotton]

I apologize if this is in the wrong topic. I have the following situation and wanted to see if it is common or not. I have ESXi 5.5 (unlocked with 1.2 unlocker) running on a middle of the road i5 system with 8 GB of RAM. I had upgraded from 5.1 in hopes of solving the following problem, but the system behavior seems identical. Whenever the Mac OS X 10.8.5 Server guest OS performs significant disk I/O between 2 attached USB drives, the entire machine crashes. Not just the VM, but the entire ESXi host, taking out all other guests as well.

 

Linux and Win7 VMs can run for weeks without a hiccup, but Mac OS hosts will crash within 30 minutes as soon as a large amount of disk I/O begins (e.g., Time Machine backup.)

 

Is this as good as Mac OS X can run under ESXi? Or is there something else amiss?

[Donk]

I apologize if this is in the wrong topic. I have the following situation and wanted to see if it is common or not. I have ESXi 5.5 (unlocked with 1.2 unlocker) running on a middle of the road i5 system with 8 GB of RAM. I had upgraded from 5.1 in hopes of solving the following problem, but the system behavior seems identical. Whenever the Mac OS X 10.8.5 Server guest OS performs significant disk I/O between 2 attached USB drives, the entire machine crashes. Not just the VM, but the entire ESXi host, taking out all other guests as well.

 

Linux and Win7 VMs can run for weeks without a hiccup, but Mac OS hosts will crash within 30 minutes as soon as a large amount of disk I/O begins (e.g., Time Machine backup.)

 

Is this as good as Mac OS X can run under ESXi? Or is there something else amiss?

 

My real Mac does the same. There are lots of complaints on Apple forums about this happening.

[wally007]

I'm happy to report that vCenter 5.5 with Unlocker works same way as it did in 5.1. Same limitations apply (unfortunately) but otherwise it works great.

Even HTML5 Console works after you fix silly VMware bug with env. variables. Console works on Windows, Linux and Mac machines and it's much faster and responsive than old Windows Client console.

 

I must add that Web client is resource hungry dog. It's probably due to heavy use of Flash but Its slow and I cant see myself using it at work. I hope VMware switches to HTML5 and Flash dies FAST.