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ESXi 5 Mac OS X Unlocker

Donk

By Donk,
in Multi-booting and Virtualisation

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MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted
HI All

 

Thanks for this thread . I am running ESx 5.0 Build 469512 on a whitebox with intel i7 processor. I have successfully installed Macosx SL and Lion (USB Install). Vmware tools works on SL but I have not beena able to install on lion. When i try to install tools i dont see drive mounted.

 

any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

I have not been able to get the tools to mount, so have used the old fashoned way of copying the darwin.iso to the guestOS and mounting and installing locally. An SMB share seems to work pretty well to connect to your guestOS on an ESXi server.

 

solved the issue. copied darwin.iso and ran from vm.

 

everything looks good and working

 

thanks

You beat me to the punch line, LoL!

ashleyw
ashleyw
Posted
Posted

Have been running darwin-200 for a while without issues (even on ESX5i), but after host reboot of ESX5i, then OSX VM will hang at start up, until the darwin install.sh command is issued again.

 

I tried to switch to the new esx5i unlocker - all went fine, but the ESx5i host (build 474610) is part of a farm and when I tried to vmotion load (windows and Linux VMs) back onto the host that had the unlocker applied, the vmotions all started hanging at 9% after the first 7 VMs had migrated.

 

The only solution I could find was to uninstall the unlocker with "./install.sh --uninstall" and then reboot the ESx5i host - after this vmotions back to that host started to work fine again.

 

After uninstalling the unlocker, then re-running the darwin-200 installer the Mac OSX VM was able to start again.

 

Any ideas?

MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted
Have been running darwin-200 for a while without issues (even on ESX5i), but after host reboot of ESX5i, then OSX VM will hang at start up, until the darwin install.sh command is issued again.

 

I tried to switch to the new esx5i unlocker - all went fine, but the ESx5i host (build 474610) is part of a farm and when I tried to vmotion load (windows and Linux VMs) back onto the host that had the unlocker applied, the vmotions all started hanging at 9% after the first 7 VMs had migrated.

 

The only solution I could find was to uninstall the unlocker with "./install.sh --uninstall" and then reboot the ESx5i host - after this vmotions back to that host started to work fine again.

 

After uninstalling the unlocker, then re-running the darwin-200 installer the Mac OSX VM was able to start again.

 

Any ideas?

Ashley,

 

This is really outside the scope of this forum, OS X is not supported on ESXi and definately not in a production cluster with vCenter Server, things are likely to break. The Unlocker is to allow people to run OS X in a standalone environment using either VMware Workstation, Player, Fusion or ESXi for personnal use. If you need OS X in a work environment get a Mac. Sorry, and this is not aimed at you Ashley, if this comes across as being heavy handed, but it is important to set a level of expectation for running OS X in unsupported configurations, they may work but the risks are high. Donk, myself and other have Mac hardware for use in a production environment.

Menno
Menno
Posted
Posted
Hi MSoK,

 

do you all use xserves or other mac hardware? Do you run OSX on esxi 5 (vanilla) on a Mac Pro or maybe a Mini (Server)? I've read that it should be possible, is it?

 

 

best regards,

oegie

 

Though I am not MSoK

 

--edit

If I recall correctly, ESXi 5.0 works on all macs and the OS X 10.6 Server guest should be working fine without any modifications. It supports the EFI loader on the mac. Tried it on my MacbookPro6,1 with ESXi 5.0 loaded on a usb stick and can connect just fine.

 

-- From the notes:

 

"Apple Mac OS X Server guest operating system support. VMware vSphere 5.0 adds support for the Apple Mac OS X Server 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”) as a guest operating system. Support is restricted to Apple Xserve model Xserve3,1 systems."

 

Seems the support through contract is just limited to xserve.

madburg
madburg
Posted
Posted
I did investigate this for the previous release of vSphere server. I will install an eval version as soon as I have some free time, and look again. In the hosted product, Workstation, Player and Fusion there is a table in one DLL/SO that has a table of all guest types and whether formally supported or not. I have this patched up for the betas of Workstation and Fusion, but the DLL is different in vSphere, and never really found where it was hiding.

 

Donk, many thanks for the unlocker for esxi 5. If you can spare a moment to find that vCenter dll and work it, I (as well as other) would be ever more grateful to you. Thanks again.

 

P.S. First time I ever had to take a quiz to post in a forum (very cool idea, smiling the whole time about the concept as I was wipping through them, LOL).

Donk
Donk
Posted
  • Author
Posted
Donk, many thanks for the unlocker for esxi 5. If you can spare a moment to find that vCenter dll and work it, I (as well as other) would be ever more grateful to you. Thanks again.

 

P.S. First time I ever had to take a quiz to post in a forum (very cool idea, smiling the whole time about the concept as I was wipping through them, LOL).

Sorry I don't have access to a vCenter 5 system at present, and to be honest I actually don't have the time as work is very busy. Maybe someone else with access to a system to test could take a look.

d00m
d00m
Posted
Posted

Hello.

please tell me where I can download the latest version of the guest utils to esxi 4.1

I tried to install unlock-all-v101 on esxi 4.1 381591 but got an error:

 

 

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # ls -la

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 700 Nov 14 20:52 .

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1260 Nov 14 20:52 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1226592 Oct 3 09:18 Unlocker.ESXi

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 810 Oct 3 09:18 install.sh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 398 Oct 3 09:18 uninstall.sh

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # chmod +x install.sh

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # ./install.sh

VMware ESXi 5.0 Unlocker 1.0.1

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

Patching files...

cp: cannot stat '/bin/vmx-stats': No such file or directory

 

 

I need update Vmware tools for OS X 10.6.8 to have actual info about IP of my VM with Mac OS.

With vmware-darwin310-macosx1064 I can't see that info in Summary tab.. I think it's because I need update VMWare tools.

Pls advice.

MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted
Hello.

please tell me where I can download the latest version of the guest utils to esxi 4.1

I tried to install unlock-all-v101 on esxi 4.1 381591 but got an error:

 

 

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # ls -la

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 700 Nov 14 20:52 .

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1260 Nov 14 20:52 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1226592 Oct 3 09:18 Unlocker.ESXi

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 810 Oct 3 09:18 install.sh

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 398 Oct 3 09:18 uninstall.sh

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # chmod +x install.sh

/vmfs/volumes/4e1dc422-cef7fcda-6f95-001b21670532/unlock-all-v101/esxi # ./install.sh

VMware ESXi 5.0 Unlocker 1.0.1

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

Patching files...

cp: cannot stat '/bin/vmx-stats': No such file or directory

 

I need update Vmware tools for OS X 10.6.8 to have actual info about IP of my VM with Mac OS.

With vmware-darwin310-macosx1064 I can't see that info in Summary tab.. I think it's because I need update VMWare tools.

Pls advice.

The "unlock-all-v101" is only for ESXi 5, and supports the original and two patch levels, for ESXi 4.1 you need Donk's darwin.iso method which uses the download "wmware-darwin310-macosx1064" this includes the VMware tools from Fusion 3.1.0, a later version can be found at the following link:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1622074

Justin Juneau
Justin Juneau
Posted
Posted

Trying to use the 1.0.1 unlocker on ESXi host 5.0.0 - Rev 469512:

 

First off, I apologize this question is so long. In a nutshell, I'm not sure I installed the unlocker correctly (see my steps below) and as a result, I have a VMware "vmdk" of Lion 10.7.1 that wont start up in a new virtual machine. (I've verified the vmdk works with VMWare workstation, however, I want to put this on my ESXi host)

 

Firstly, here's my setup and what I did -

 

ESXi server (5.0.0) is running on a Dell Optiplex 745 with 3 hard drives. (Machine is able to run Linux/Window VM's without any problems)

 

1 Hard drive houses the ESXi installation (Data Store 1)

2 Hard drives are used for the VM Datastores (Data Store 2 and Data Store 3)

 

I used WinSCP to copy the esxi folder (from the unlocker zip file) to the /(root) directory of my ESXi host (I'm guessing this is Data Store 1 since that's where I installed ESXi). I gave the "esxi" folder and subfiles +x permission and tried to run "install.sh" from Putty. I received an error that "command not found". I then attempted to run "./install.sh" and received an error indicating "no free space available" - All of my Data Stores have 60+ GB of free space so I figured I must be installing the unlocker to the wrong DataStore. I copied the "esxi" (unlocker) folder over to DataStore 2 which my VM's use for storage. I ran the unlocker with "./install.sh" and everything appeared to install/copy correctly. So I rebooted the ESXi server for the changes to take affect. Does it matter what data store I run the unlocker on?

 

Thinking everything installed correctly (no errors in the terminal window, I copied a "Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1" folder to Data Store #2 (same place that I ran the unlocker - also, I used WinSCP to copy the folder). The Mac OS X Lion folder contains a working vmdk (Virtual Disk) for use with "unlocked" copies of VMWare Workstation, Player, etc. I know the vmdk works because I use it with VMware Workstation (Trial). Anyway, I attempted to create a new Virtual machine with "other" for O.S. and selected OSX 10.6 (64-bit) and specified the virtual disk file to use with this VM (navigated to the vmdk file in the Mac OS X Lion folder) - When I started up the newly created VM, I get the following error message:

 

Module DevicePowerOn power on failed.

Unable to create virtual SCSI device for scsi0:0, '/vmfs/volumes/4e5669c0-c9b5b308-0524-001aa0b5dfb8/Mac OS X Lion/Mac OS X Lion.vmdk'

Failed to open disk scsi0:0: Unsupported or invalid disk type 7. Ensure that the disk has been imported.

 

So my question is, did I incorrectly install the Unlocker? Does it matter what DataStore you install the unlocker on? Did I configure the OSX VM incorrectly? Should this question be going to the creator of the vmdk file?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

-Justin

Justin Juneau
Justin Juneau
Posted
Posted
Unlocker is NOT being installed. It only patches few files (you should understand it if you want to use it!)

 

As to the error? Any problems with Google where you live?

 

sebus

 

I'd really like to understand this Unlocker to fully utilize it, however, the first post doesn't offer any information on what it is nor how to accurately install it. Do you have any better instructions on how to install on ESXi other than "run install.sh" ? I do appreciate your feedback about the Unlocker not being installed... Maybe you can elaborate? --- As for the error message, it's probably displaying that error because the unlocker isn't patching (according to your statement). I look forward to a reply.

 

Thank you kindly,

sebus
sebus
Posted
Posted

How about trying to understand what the install.sh actually does? (pretty easy to read line by line in notepad)

 

As to what it does?

 

Why dont you just hex compare original file & one that has been patched by unlocker?

 

It will give you an answer

 

As to the error? Unrelated to the unlocker (seems you did not even follow the link I posted)

 

sebus

MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted
I'd really like to understand this Unlocker to fully utilize it, however, the first post doesn't offer any information on what it is nor how to accurately install it. Do you have any better instructions on how to install on ESXi other than "run install.sh" ? I do appreciate your feedback about the Unlocker not being installed... Maybe you can elaborate? --- As for the error message, it's probably displaying that error because the unlocker isn't patching (according to your statement). I look forward to a reply.

 

Thank you kindly,

Justin,

To answer your original question, ESXi installed on to a local HD or a USB stick, this is separate to any of the datastores. So it should not matter where you copy the "unlock-all-v101.zip" ESXi files, any of the datastores should be fine, I normally create an unlocker directory on the root of one of the datastores, by the way I also create an iso directory to upload iso images of guestOS's I intend to install.

 

With no guestOS's running, from the ESXi console, not putty, etc. change the permissions of your unlocker files, as per Donk's readme file included in the .zip with the latest unlocker, but see the link below for some additional details, and run the ./install.sh, again from the ESXi console. You can run the Unlocker.ESXi directly, check relevant install parameters, however the install script has been extensively tested and refined, so it is the recommended route for all but the very experienced.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1751068

 

Reboot your ESXi Server, and from your vSphere Client see if you can select OS X as a guestOS when creating a new virtual machine, if you can then the unlocker has most likely worked.

 

Although I would recommend creating a new OS X guestOS, you should be able to convert an existing OS X guestOS, but note the term "convert", copying the .vmdk will not work as the defualt disk presentation between Workstation / Player and ESXi are different. You can download the Converter from VMware for free, see link below, or install it from the Workstation 8 Home Page.

 

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

 

If the converter works, I have not tried it but will when I get a chance, check your new .vmx file, to ensure it has OS X 10.7 "Lion" selected as the guestOS, this can be done in the GUI or checked directly in the .vmx file the entry should be as follows:

 

guestOS = "darwin11-64" or "darwin11"

 

Good luck, we are here to help, MSoK.

Justin Juneau
Justin Juneau
Posted
Posted
Justin,

To answer your original question, ESXi installed on to a local HD or a USB stick, this is separate to any of the datastores. So it should not matter where you copy the "unlock-all-v101.zip" ESXi files, any of the datastores should be fine, I normally create an unlocker directory on the root of one of the datastores, by the way I also create an iso directory to upload iso images of guestOS's I intend to install.

 

With no guestOS's running, from the ESXi console, not putty, etc. change the permissions of your unlocker files, as per Donk's readme file included in the .zip with the latest unlocker, but see the link below for some additional details, and run the ./install.sh, again from the ESXi console. You can run the Unlocker.ESXi directly, check relevant install parameters, however the install script has been extensively tested and refined, so it is the recommended route for all but the very experienced.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1751068

 

Reboot your ESXi Server, and from your vSphere Client see if you can select OS X as a guestOS when creating a new virtual machine, if you can then the unlocker as most likely worked.

 

Although I would recommend creating a new OS X guestOS, you should be able to convert an existing OS X guestOS, but note the term "convert", copying the .vmdk will not work as the defualt disk presentation between Workstation / Player and ESXi are different. You can download the Converter from VMware for free, see link below, or install it from the Workstation 8 Home Page.

 

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

 

If the convertor works, I have not tried it but will when I get a chance, check your new .vmx file, to ensure it has OS X 10.7 "Lion" selected as the guestOS.

 

Good luck, we are here to help, MSoK.

 

FINALLY! An intelligent and HELPFUL response. Thank you MSoK. I truly appreciate you taking the time to clarify. I'm sure others in my predicament will stumble across this site (through google) and be just as thankful as I am. If I had known "everything" about this unlocker and how it works, I wouldn't be wasting my time "trolling" the forums looking to sabotage people looking for help. So again, I applaud you for your help and I will go the ISO route as you suggested above.

 

Happy Holidays,

 

-Justin

Justin Juneau
Justin Juneau
Posted
Posted
FINALLY! An intelligent and HELPFUL response. Thank you MSoK. I truly appreciate you taking the time to clarify. I'm sure others in my predicament will stumble across this site (through google) and be just as thankful as I am. If I had known "everything" about this unlocker and how it works, I wouldn't be wasting my time "trolling" the forums looking to sabotage people looking for help. So again, I applaud you for your help and I will go the ISO route as you suggested above.

 

Happy Holidays,

 

-Justin

 

Got it working! MSoK was correct, the unlocker DID install even though I ran it from a different data store than where I installed ESXi. (Thanks for the wrong information Sebus, maybe you should try using google). All I had to do was use the VMware converter on the VMDK file and point the converter to upload the resulting file to my ESXi server (sorry if that sounds confusing). I then went into Vsphere client, edited the new VM settings to reflect the guest O.S. was/is OSX 10.6 (64bit), booted the machine and presto!

 

Thanks again MSoK for this valuable tool and for your HELPFUL response!

MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted
Got it working! MSoK was correct, the unlocker DID install even though I ran it from a different data store than where I installed ESXi. (Thanks for the wrong information Sebus, maybe you should try using google). All I had to do was use the VMware converter on the VMDK file and point the converter to upload the resulting file to my ESXi server (sorry if that sounds confusing). I then went into Vsphere client, edited the new VM settings to reflect the guest O.S. was/is OSX 10.6 (64bit), booted the machine and presto!

 

Thanks again MSoK for this valuable tool and for your HELPFUL response!

Justin,

Glad to hear you have solved your issue, of course, just for general information, the converter needs to point at a server, in your case ESXi, but the server can also be your local copy of Workstation, for doing P2V's or V2V's from a different environment.

 

Also gentlemen can we move on, sebus is a valued member of the InsanelyMac forum, and has provided help and solutions over an extended period.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
sebus
sebus
Posted
Posted

Has anybody experienced any problems with VMotion (while using unlocker on ESX5i)

On ESX 4.1 I never had any problems, same hardware with patched latest ESX5i behaves odd (migrates fine a couple of machines & then times out on another)

services.sh restart always clears the problem

Just wonder if it could be unlocker (most likely not, but worth eliminating before I involve Vmware Support)

 

Thanks

 

sebus

MSoK
MSoK
Posted
Posted

Has anybody experienced any problems with VMotion (while using unlocker on ESX5i)

On ESX 4.1 I never had any problems, same hardware with patched latest ESX5i behaves odd (migrates fine a couple of machines & then times out on another)

services.sh restart always clears the problem

Just wonder if it could be unlocker (most likely not, but worth eliminating before I involve Vmware Support)

 

Thanks

 

sebus

sebus,

I am not aware of any issues regarding the unlocker and vCenter Server based operations, but be aware the unlocker is not vCenter aware, and should only be used with OS X guestOS's accessed via vSphere client connected directly to the relevant ESXi host and not via vCenter.

If you do intend to contact VMware support, ensure you uninstall the unlocker first, it is very definately outside the support envelope.

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