Workstation 11/12, Player 7/12, Fusion 7/8 and ESXi 6 Mac OS X Unlocker 2

[donkey01]

2.0.9 from the GitHub repo now works on my upgraded exsi 6.5 install.  OS X Sierra installed just fine with no smc entries...and other operating systems powered up just fine...  looks like official release should happen soon.

[Donk]

2.0.9 from the GitHub repo now works on my upgraded exsi 6.5 install.  OS X Sierra installed just fine with no smc entries...and other operating systems powered up just fine...  looks like official release should happen soon.

 

Please do not use the GitHub code. We have significant issues on some real servers which can make them unusable. They can only be recovered if you have physical access to th keyboard and screen.

[Rubyducky]

Unlocker 2.0.8 is for ESXi6 and does not work on ESXi 5/5.5. Also it is very likely that you need the specific 10.12 setting in VMware to be available to make Sierra run. The guest OS settings enable/disable specific OS optimisations in the core VMware code.

 

FWIW, Sierra installed and runs fine on 6.0 with the "Mac OS X 10.10" guest OS setting, which I think is the highest it goes on VM version 11

[AUCBDude]

Hello again,

 

thanks for the reply, unluckily ive made a little typo in my first statement. Of course i am running esxi 6.0 und not 5 while using Unlocker 2.0.8, but there is no 10.12 OS version available.

[Donk]

Hello again,

 

thanks for the reply, unluckily ive made a little typo in my first statement. Of course i am running esxi 6.0 und not 5 while using Unlocker 2.0.8, but there is no 10.12 OS version available.

 

OK. There would not be an entry for it as 10.12 came out after ESXi 6. VMware would need to add it to an ESXi 6.0 update for it to be selectable as a guest OS type. The unlocker just makes VMware hidden options visible when it comes to the guest OS type.

[AUCBDude]

so why isnt Sierra working for me, when other users dont have this isue ?

[Donk]

so why isnt Sierra working for me, when other users dont have this isue ?

 

So we need more information to help out. 

 

1. What is the host machine specification? CPUs and Memory?

2. How did you create the installation media for creating the guest?

3. Attach to a post the vmx file for the guest 

4. Attach to a post the vmweare.log file for the guest

 

(Please make sure you attach them as files and do not post inline as makes following the thread very difficult)

[AUCBDude]

1.    16 CPUs x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz       128 GB Ram

2.      Media downloaded as .dmg from appstore, coverted on Mac and testet on Workstation 12

Sierra_vmx.txt

vmware_log.txt

[Donk]

1.    16 CPUs x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz       128 GB Ram

2.      Media downloaded as .dmg from appstore, coverted on Mac and testet on Workstation 12

 

Thanks. Try adding these 2 lines to your VMX file:

ich7m.present = "TRUE"
smc.present = "TRUE"

[AUCBDude]

VM is booting now, but my ESXI WebUI keeps crashing when editing that machine.

 

Edit: Created 120GB Harddisk for VM, but Installation just shows DVD Device

[Donk]

VM is booting now, but my ESXI WebUI keeps crashing when editing that machine.

 

I use Workstation or Fusion to manage ESX so try it from one of those products and see if it still causes a problem. It could be there is something else missing. I can have a look but not until tomorrow.

[donkey01]

OK. There would not be an entry for it as 10.12 came out after ESXi 6. VMware would need to add it to an ESXi 6.0 update for it to be selectable as a guest OS type. The unlocker just makes VMware hidden options visible when it comes to the guest OS type.

 

Can confirm there is no option for OS X 10.12 when running unlocker 2.0.8.... but if you un-install unlocker which defeats it's purpose, OS X 10.12 will be available from the drop down menu assuming you have the latest VMware exsi patches so this confirms that unlocker 2.0.8 is the limiting factor.   Given that I used the GitHub 2.0.9 code(frowned upon by Donk) which did work on my dell R610 server without any issues, OS X 10.12 is available on EXSI 6.5.  I updated to this since simply editing my OS X install on exsi 6.0 using unlocker 2.0.8 hung my system and gave me an operating system not found when booting OS X... all I did was increase the core from 1 to 4 cpu's and that killed it.

[Donk]

I will have to check this but the unlocker is not touching anything in this area. It only does 2 things. It adds the Apple haiku for the SMC controller and tells vCenter that OS X is supported by a simple string replace.

 

The 2.0.9 issue is now sorted but the code is not fully tested so please wait until I flag the code as done in a release and a commit to GitHub.

 

There have been issues with VMware and the number of cores in a macOS guest. The recommendation from VMware is 1 CPU/2 cores.

[kookster]

Hey Donk. I know we shouldn't be using the 2.0.9 release yet, but I was just playing around with it and I wanted to make you aware of a problem I am seeing.

 

I installed ESXi 6.5 a few days ago, patched it with 2.0.9 and everything worked great. I decided to re-create the host with some bigger hard drives, so I upgraded the drives, reinstalled, and re-patched with the unlocker.

 

Now whenever I go to start ANY VM on that host, I get this error:

"The available Memory resources in the parent resource pool are insufficient for the operation"

When I un-install the unlocker, everything works again (windows VM's that is).

 

If you are already aware of this, great, I look forward to 2.0.9, if not let me know if I can get you any logs or anything.

 

[Donk]

Hey Donk. I know we shouldn't be using the 2.0.9 release yet, but I was just playing around with it and I wanted to make you aware of a problem I am seeing.

 

I installed ESXi 6.5 a few days ago, patched it with 2.0.9 and everything worked great. I decided to re-create the host with some bigger hard drives, so I upgraded the drives, reinstalled, and re-patched with the unlocker.

 

Now whenever I go to start ANY VM on that host, I get this error:

"The available Memory resources in the parent resource pool are insufficient for the operation"

When I un-install the unlocker, everything works again (windows VM's that is).

 

If you are already aware of this, great, I look forward to 2.0.9, if not let me know if I can get you any logs or anything.

 

Thanks for the report. This is something new and not sure why this has happened. Could you tell me a bit more of your setup please?

 

1. How is ESXi installed?

2. USB key, hard drive?

3. Stateless or stateful?

4. Did you do a complete reinstall or upgrade install?

5. Host specification especially RAM?

 

If you don't mind could you zip or tar the /var/log folder and put it somewhere so I can download it. If you don't want others to have it email me via the address in the readme file.

 

I will be honest it is looking more likely that the unlocker will not be working reliably on ESXi. VMware have made some changes that seem to be beginning to restrict this sort of overlay. Probably related to the push into secure boot for ESXi. The question is do I release what I have with a big warning? I have to say I am reluctant to do so as I don't want someone running something critical on an ESXi host in a production environment with unreliable code.

[Donk]

I will have to check this but the unlocker is not touching anything in this area. It only does 2 things. It adds the Apple haiku for the SMC controller and tells vCenter that OS X is supported by a simple string replace.

 

The 2.0.9 issue is now sorted but the code is not fully tested so please wait until I flag the code as done in a release and a commit to GitHub.

 

There have been issues with VMware and the number of cores in a macOS guest. The recommendation from VMware is 1 CPU/2 cores.

 

 

I have been and checked ESXi 6.0 and 6.5 with and without unlocker. I used ESXi Host UI, Fusion 8.5.3 and Workstation 12.5.2 to create new macOS guests. (I don't have vCSA available just at the moment.)

 

 

          ESXi UI Fusion Workstation
ESXi 6.0  10.10   10.10  10.10
ESXi 6.5  10.12   10.12  10.11

The only anomaly is Workstation but this is consistent with and without unlocker running on the ESXi host.

[kookster]

Thanks for the report. This is something new and not sure why this has happened. Could you tell me a bit more of your setup please?

 

1. How is ESXi installed?

2. USB key, hard drive?

3. Stateless or stateful?

4. Did you do a complete reinstall or upgrade install?

5. Host specification especially RAM?

 

If you don't mind could you zip or tar the /var/log folder and put it somewhere so I can download it. If you don't want others to have it email me via the address in the readme file.

 

I will be honest it is looking more likely that the unlocker will not be working reliably on ESXi. VMware have made some changes that seem to be beginning to restrict this sort of overlay. Probably related to the push into secure boot for ESXi. The question is do I release what I have with a big warning? I have to say I am reluctant to do so as I don't want someone running something critical on an ESXi host in a production environment with unreliable code.

 

 

Donk,

 

1. The first time, I THINK I upgraded from 5.5 to 6.5 and that was when it worked. I have however re-installed 5-6 times with all kinds of combinations. Fresh install, re-install 5.5 and upgrade again.

2. I am installing from a CD, and running from the hard drives (Raid 5 to be exact)

3. Im not sure what you mean from this, but i'm pretty sure it's sateful. This is a standard ESXi install on a Dell R610

4. I have tried both. It was working with 6 146gb hard drives, I replaced them with 6, 1TB SSDs and re-installed and it breaks

5. Dell Inc. PowerEdge R610, 2x E5620 @ 2.40GHz, 192gb RAM, 4 NICs, 6 1TB SSD in Raid 5

 

Log file are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u6kpyxvtu7kclz0/logs.tar.gz?dl=0

[pktman]

Hi Donk

 

I have home server. It is Asrock C2750D4I motherboard with Intel Avoton C2750 Octa-Core Processor and 32 GB RAM.

It has Vmware ESXi 6.0 update 2 installed.

 

I install unlock 2.08 and ok but when I start to install OS X Sierra I get panic(cpu 1 caller...) error.

The ISO is perfect because I can install it in Vmware Workstation without any problem.

What is the problem? Is the CPU?

 

 

[MSoK]

Hi Donk

 

I have home server. It is Asrock C2750D4I motherboard with Intel Avoton C2750 Octa-Core Processor and 32 GB RAM.

It has Vmware ESXi 6.0 update 2 installed.

 

I install unlock 2.08 and ok but when I start to install OS X Sierra I get panic(cpu 1 caller...) error.

The ISO is perfect because I can install it in Vmware Workstation without any problem.

What is the problem? Is the CPU?

pktman,

 

Not seen anyone running an Intel Atom processor and OS X / macOS, and not a processor used in any Apple product as far as I am aware, you might try the CPUID masks recommended in the following topic:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/290949-how-to-install-os-x-10x-snow-leopard-to-el-capitan-in-vmware-workstation-1011-workstation-proplayer-12-player-67-esxi-56/?p=1936143

[Donk]

pktman,

 

Not seen anyone running an Intel Atom processor and OS X / macOS, and not a processor used in any Apple product as far as I am aware, you might try the CPUID masks recommended in the following topic:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/290949-how-to-install-os-x-10x-snow-leopard-to-el-capitan-in-vmware-workstation-1011-workstation-proplayer-12-player-67-esxi-56/?p=1936143

 

MSoK is probably correct in his analysis. Any chance you could attach a vmware.log file to a post (please do not copy the contents into the post) so I can check out the CPUID data.

[pktman]

pktman,

 

Not seen anyone running an Intel Atom processor and OS X / macOS, and not a processor used in any Apple product as far as I am aware, you might try the CPUID masks recommended in the following topic:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/290949-how-to-install-os-x-10x-snow-leopard-to-el-capitan-in-vmware-workstation-1011-workstation-proplayer-12-player-67-esxi-56/?p=1936143

Hi MSoK and Donk

 

You are the best. It works very well.

I added

cpuid.1.eax = "0000:0000:0000:0001:0000:0110:1010:0101"

in .vmx file and works fine.

 

I discovered that this also can be done editing options of virtual machine (CPUID Mask).

 

Thank you very much for your great work.

Knowing that now it works, the next step will be to update to ESXi 6.5 when unlocker 2.09 is prepared.

[romracer]

I've not had any problems with 2.0.9RC2 on ESXi 6.5 running a freshly installed 10.12 Sierra VM.  I used a 10.10 VM on another KVM-based virtualization platform to create the ISO (not sure the previous platform matters much, just FYI).  This is in a 3 host cluster and I can vMotion the machine around, etc with no problems.

 

I did add the smc.version=0 to the VMX, though I had no problems before (but I didn't want to run the risk of a host crashing later).  You can use PowerCLI to add this setting so you don't have to edit the VMX by hand, reload the VM in a vCenter inventory, etc.  Here's how I did it:

 

Connect-VIServer (enter requested info)

New-AdvancedSetting -Entity (Get-VM -Name Name_Of_VM_Here) -Name smc.version -Value 0

 

Confirm the setting with:

 

Get-AdvancedSetting -Entity (Get-VM -Name Name_Of_VM_Here) -Name smc.version

 

Hope this helps someone.  Thanks for the great tool.

[haamic]

Hello

I need help please.

I use win10, vmware player 12.5.2 build-4638234

 

I cant patch vmware player with unlocker 2.0.8 (run win-install.cmd as admin)

 

acces denied (see image)

 

 

Why?

 

Can anybody help me? (preferably German)

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[AUCBDude]

Created 120GB Harddisk for VM, but Installation just shows DVD Device

 

 

Solution found: HDD Device was found, but no volume on it. Didnt know that OSX Installation came with tool to fix that.

 

Editing still causes UI to freeze.

[omf]

Just wanted to report that unlocker 2.0.8 worked correctly with the latest Workstation update, 12.5.2 build-4638234 on a Windows 10 host.

 

 

 

I use win10, vmware player 12.5.2 build-4638234

 

I cant patch vmware player with unlocker 2.0.8 (run win-install.cmd as admin)

 

acces denied (see image)

 

Make sure you running as Administrator and that you don't have any VMware application (like Player) running.