493 replies to this topic

[Donk]

oegie, on Sep 8 2011, 01:39 PM, said:

Hi Donk,

it's sad to hear that. The behavior does not change when selecting 10.6 (x64). As soon as i select for example FreeBSD the VM starts - but does not find the bootloader anymore and resets.
I wonder if this works on XServe hardware ...

So no vCenter support for OSX VMs and therefore no vMotion for us. *snief*


bye,
oegie

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.

[atomiX_X]

Donk, I'm currently getting a corrupted zip error when downloading from filedropper. Do you have an alternate mirror? Thanks.

Update: I received an alternate link from oegie. No need to post an alternate unless someone else is having issues.

[Donk]

atomiX_X, on Sep 8 2011, 02:42 PM, said:

Donk, I'm currently getting a corrupted zip error when downloading from filedropper. Do you have an alternate mirror? Thanks.

Update: I received an alternate link from oegie. No need to post an alternate unless someone else is having issues.

Where else is it being mirrored? I really hate that as I like to find out what the usage is. I would suggest you download again as there are plenty of folks who have downloaded it from my link.

[atomiX_X]

Donk, on Sep 8 2011, 11:48 AM, said:

Where else is it being mirrored? I really hate that as I like to find out what the usage is. I would suggest you download again as there are plenty of folks who have downloaded it from my link.

I think the link he sent me wasn't shared with anyone else so you could add +1 to your count

I tried 20+ times and it didn't work. It's possible there might be a conflict with the firewall here at work.

[Donk]

atomiX_X, on Sep 8 2011, 05:23 PM, said:

I think the link he sent me wasn't shared with anyone else so you could add +1 to your count

I tried 20+ times and it didn't work. It's possible there might be a conflict with the firewall here at work.

It's cool I spoke with the person who helped you out.

[HUR]

Donk,
  
  I tried your patch works great was able to start Lion install using usb stick. It is in the process of installing.
  
  I am sure you have answered this before, my apologies in advance.
  
  If you don't mind, I am interested to know how this patch works.
  
  I see three binary files being patched, what are the changes made?

[MSoK]

HUR, on Sep 9 2011, 05:14 AM, said:

Donk,
  
  I tried your patch works great was able to start Lion install using usb stick. It is in the process of installing.
  
  I am sure you have answered this before, my apologies in advance.
  
  If you don't mind, I am interested to know how this patch works.
  
  I see three binary files being patched, what are the changes made?

Hur,

I suspect the answer to your question is no, as we don't want to give VMware informtion for them to close the loophole in a future update, or remove it from the up coming Workstation 8 / 2011. Best to keep the detailed knowledge in safe hands like Donk's.

Please do not be offended,
Cheers MSoK!

[sofakng]

I was also going to ask how this worked, but really I'm just wondering if this might affect the stability of the ESXi host.

Does this patch the VMX binaries used by the entire system, or does it only patch binaries that the OS X host would use?

EDIT:  Also, I'm having a problem installing Snow Leopard.  I've patched my ESXi 5.0 system, rebooted, and created an "Apple OS X 10.6 (64-bit)" guest operating system.  I'm using the host CD-ROM drive.

When the guest os boots, it boots my retail Snow Leopard DVD and I see the Apple logo, but then a second or two later I see a blinking cursor and the system reboots over and over...

[Donk]

sofakng, on Sep 11 2011, 03:59 AM, said:

I was also going to ask how this worked, but really I'm just wondering if this might affect the stability of the ESXi host.

Does this patch the VMX binaries used by the entire system, or does it only patch binaries that the OS X host would use?

EDIT:  Also, I'm having a problem installing Snow Leopard.  I've patched my ESXi 5.0 system, rebooted, and created an "Apple OS X 10.6 (64-bit)" guest operating system.  I'm using the host CD-ROM drive.

When the guest os boots, it boots my retail Snow Leopard DVD and I see the Apple logo, but then a second or two later I see a blinking cursor and the system reboots over and over...

It is a system wide patch, but can easily be removed. The patch will not alter anything for any other guest VMs and when remved the system is completely put back to the installed version as everything used RAM disks in ESXi. Basically the patch allows the SMC controller and MAC OS X checks to pass without any other CD etc., and is the equivalent to the code path inside VMware Fusion.

I understand your dilema and I would say to anyone who wants to use Mac OS X or any form of productive use buy a Mac or virtualize on a VMware approved platform such as Mac and Fusion or Xserve and ESXi. On that last note I see no code that checks for Xserve, and booting ESXi on my Macbook Pro showed all the ESXi Apple drivers correctly loaded.

For SL what is the CPU in the host and what version of SL? Do not forget that early SL version cannot support later CPUS e.g. Sandy Bridge until 10.6.7.

[sofakng]

Thanks for the information!

Also - I _greatly_ appreciate all of your efforts on brining OS X to VMware!

Anyways... why does the CPU matter for ESXi and OS X?  Since the guest operating system is virtualized, I thought Snow Leopard wouldn't even know about the CPU in the host, etc.

[kashMoney]

I migrated a working osx lion install, and its stuck on the apple logo, did smc=present, donk's patch, cpuid modification, it still hangs at apple logo screen, tried verbose startup didnt work, went to efi shell but it says boot is invalid command

[Donk]

sofakng, on Sep 11 2011, 02:39 PM, said:

Thanks for the information!

Also - I _greatly_ appreciate all of your efforts on brining OS X to VMware!

Anyways... why does the CPU matter for ESXi and OS X?  Since the guest operating system is virtualized, I thought Snow Leopard wouldn't even know about the CPU in the host, etc.

Virtualized systems pass the real CPU characteristics through to the guest. Emulation would allow any CPU to be specified. That's the reason virtualization is so quick compared to emulation.

You can mask certain features and it may be possible to do that for ESXi booting Mac OS X. MSoK can point you in the right direction for a CPUID mask that may help.

[sofakng]

Donk, on Sep 11 2011, 10:28 AM, said:

Virtualized systems pass the real CPU characteristics through to the guest. Emulation would allow any CPU to be specified. That's the reason virtualization is so quick compared to emulation.

You can mask certain features and it may be possible to do that for ESXi booting Mac OS X. MSoK can point you in the right direction for a CPUID mask that may help.

Thanks very much for the explanation.

I'll continue my question in the other thread since the original post on that thread says it's meant for questions regarding installing OS X and this thread is more about the unlocker itself.

Thanks again so much!

[p1x]

Donk,

I've written a bios extractor for ESXi:

http://forums.mydigi...SXi-Bios-Tools/

which I'm currently updating to work with v5. I could include the code to   automate patching of ESXi for OSX with your patch if you're happy for me   to?

It unpacks the ramdisk image s.v00 from the active vmfs folder, mods the vmx file and repacks it, leaving boot.cfg unchanged.

If you're happy for me to do this, would your preference be to include your archive in my pack or force the user to pick it from a dialogue?

[Locoblade]

Hi Guys

When I run unlocker I get the following permission denied error:

Quote

VMware ESXi 5.0 Unlocker 1.0.0
  ==============================
  Patching files...
  install.sh: line 13: ./bspatch: Permission denied

First time I've tried this so probably doing something silly, logging on via SSH using root if that matters.

Thanks

[Donk]

p1x, on Sep 12 2011, 04:57 PM, said:

Donk,

I've written a bios extractor for ESXi:

http://forums.mydigi...SXi-Bios-Tools/

which I'm currently updating to work with v5. I could include the code to   automate patching of ESXi for OSX with your patch if you're happy for me   to?

It unpacks the ramdisk image s.v00 from the active vmfs folder, mods the vmx file and repacks it, leaving boot.cfg unchanged.

If you're happy for me to do this, would your preference be to include your archive in my pack or force the user to pick it from a dialogue?

Hi

Sorry I missed your PM as was busy over weekend. Actually I would rather do it my way based on feedback I have been given. No offence but I was asked to do something that was reversible and so took the root of using the bootbank to do this. Happy to discuss in more detail of you want, such as incorporating both sets of patches but delivering via a new tgz or vmtar file.

Donk

[a3897431@nepwk.com]

hi folks,

i used a pre existing vm-image created on vmworkstation 7.x and converted it with vmconverter to esxi5. i have used the "unlock script" ( not sure if installing,reboot, deinstall, reboot is the right procedure )

I can start the VM, but it hangs on the gray Apple Logo Screen ... any ideas?

cheers
m

[Donk]

a3897431@nepwk.com, on Sep 13 2011, 08:34 PM, said:

hi folks,

i used a pre existing vm-image created on vmworkstation 7.x and converted it with vmconverter to esxi5. i have used the "unlock script" ( not sure if installing,reboot, deinstall, reboot is the right procedure )

I can start the VM, but it hangs on the gray Apple Logo Screen ... any ideas?

cheers
m

Please attach vmx file to a post. Do not copy it inline into the post.

[a3897431@nepwk.com]

hi donk,

here you go.

thx in advance
cheers
m

Attached Files

•  Mac_OS_X_Lion_10.7.txt   3.62K   135 downloads

[oegie]

hi a3897431@nepwk.com,

you just install the patch and reboot. The deinstallation just removes the changes you have made previously and restores a plain vanillla esxi. So you do not want to deinstall as long as you want to run OSX natively ...


cheers,
oegie