493 replies to this topic

[MSoK]

madburg, on 10 May 2013 - 02:01 AM, said:

I'm not sure that since there was no replies if something bad was found with the information I posted.

Today, I decided to uninstall unlocker v110, as esxi 5.1.0 U1 Health Status (CIM) and other hardware statuses (like hardware acceleration for storage statues) where all acting up all this time. And since the moment I upgraded from 5.0 U1 to 5.1.0 U1 I installed unlocker v110 I could not be sure if it was a compatibility issue with my hardware and this new version of esxi or unlocker causing it. I can confirm it was indeed unlocker v110 causing it. Everything is perfect now that unlocker v110 is uninstalled.

I just took a screenshot of what the esxi Health Status (CIM) looks like when unlocker is not installed and esxi 5.1.0 U1 works properly. WIth unlocker v110 installed all statuses displayed "unknown" (no fan speeds etc...) as well as miss-reporting in other areas via the vSphere client. There were also lags in vm guest consoles when powering up vm's, this too is now functioning properly.

Re-running the tests on the osx 10.8.3 guest with the mounted dmg gave the exact behavior (with the unlocker v110 uninstalled), so this version of unlocker is not working properly under esxi 5.1.0 U1 and unfortunately causes other stability (for a lack of better words at the moment) issue with the base esxi.

To verify with you, all I did is copy the 3 files (install.sh, uninstall.sh, Unlocker.ESXi) to a folder in my datastore (no other files), than ran chmod +x against the 3 files (they turned green color via putty once that was done) and executed ./install.sh from the path in which they reside on the datastore. The output I posted in a previous post, Donk verified.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

madburg,

Sorry for the lack of response to you problem, I cannot see anything obviously wrong, your method for installing the "Unlocker" is correct, including the vmwarebase error you get during the install.

I have ESXi 5.1.0 U1 running fine with the "Unlocker" v1.1.0 installed and OS X 10.8.3, this was however a from scratch install.

So I guess either you have some remains of your vCenter Server environment, or your upgrade has left some underlying issues, I have seen some comments on the VMware Community about using update manager causing spurious problems, these were resolved by doing the upgrade from the install ISO burned to USB or CD, which method did you use?

[Hominidae]

madburg, on 10 May 2013 - 02:01 AM, said:

Today, I decided to uninstall unlocker v110, as esxi 5.1.0 U1 Health Status (CIM) and other hardware statuses (like hardware acceleration for storage statues) where all acting up all this time. And since the moment I upgraded from 5.0 U1 to 5.1.0 U1 I installed unlocker v110 I could not be sure if it was a compatibility issue with my hardware and this new version of esxi or unlocker causing it. I can confirm it was indeed unlocker v110 causing it. Everything is perfect now that unlocker v110 is uninstalled.

I just took a screenshot of what the esxi Health Status (CIM) looks like when unlocker is not installed and esxi 5.1.0 U1 works properly. WIth unlocker v110 installed all statuses displayed "unknown" (no fan speeds etc...) as well as miss-reporting in other areas via the vSphere client.

Madburg,

this bug regarding health status is not related to the unlocker.
I did a fresh install of 5.1 before I started with unlocker and hackintosh and have seen this.
AFAIR from some research on the web (like here, http://communities.v...tart=0&tstart=0), many others are seeing it too, especially on older whitebox hardware.

I understand that you cannot migrate your setup from 5.0 to a fresh install of 5.1 without going through everything manually, but maybe it is worth
a try to install 5.1 on another disk just to test your hardware setup in order to confirm that  at least a standard setup will work with your hardware?

[Acestes]

Firstly thank you for the unlocker! It works really well on workstation 9, but I am having some trouble with ESXi. I'm running ESXi 5.1 U1 (Build 1065491) and I'm using the vSphere client that came with it, but I can't see any changes that the unlocker has made, should I? For example when I create a new VM I see the option for OSX 10.7, but not 10.8, is that normal once unlocked as I already had those options before I ran the unlocker? As far as I know the uinlocker installed OK, or at least I didn't get any error messages. Any help is much appreciated and if you need any more information please just ask.

P.S. I'm quote new to Linux\ESXi so I may have not done something that is obvious!

[madburg]

Acestes, there is no option for 10.8 in esx (as it stands now, probably in future updates)i, you just select 10.7 in the settings and install the 10.8.x version you wish.

MSoK, Acestes, thanks for your input guys, I guess I have no choice but to backup everything and install from scratch and see if that makes a difference....I have been preparing for a few days now (only get a few hour each night) and hoping to do it tonight (hopefully).

P.S. MSoK, I performed the 5.1.0 U1 upgrade via ISO to the USB stick which had 5.0 U1 on it

[Acestes]

Thanks madburg. I just thought with VMware anouncing support for 10.8.3 in U1 they would at least let you choose 10.8 as an option, obviously not. I'll have to give it a go this weekend and see if I can get OSX up and running, although my machine is AMD based so it will probably be more of a challenge

[madburg]

So I finished (at 2am) installing from scratch/fresh, it was interesting to see how from even the very beginning steps like the usb key, it was partitioned differently by 5.1.0 U1... vmnic's assignments changed, that screwed me up a bit. under 5.0 U1 I had vmnic0-4, now under 5.1.0 U1 I had vmnic 1-5. Getting by mgmt network under my LAG was a mother f'er as I been through this before with 5.0, installing the updated mpt2sas drivers, setting scratch/syslog locations configuration, license, port groups, local balance, all over again, anyways... all the backups and screenshot help out alot. So I was now running 5.1.0 U1 FRESH as a summer breeze

Interestingly (this is all before applying unlocker) I was seeing high cpu utilization upon reboots (no VMs running) would last quite some time. During that time the Health Status (CIM) where showing normal with stats. Once the CPU utilization dropped like it should since no VMs where running, the Health Status change to unknown and lost stats... So it is not an unlocker thing (THANKS VMWARE! you figure by U1 things like this would be working).

So a nervous as I was, I installed unlocker v110. HOLY SHIZZLES, the test 10.8.3 guest I had waiting, booted that dmg quick fast and I was on my way (you have to use the disk utility to erase the VM disk, then only can you install), no issue between reboots, no issues at all. Proceeded to move on to powering on my previous 10.7.x VM (with the data I need) booted right up!!! So I am back to OS X virtualization, sweet.

So only one question I can think of at the moment, VM Tools displays "Running (unsupported)" is that to be expected. I copied the darwin.iso that was included in the unlocker v110 source to the datastore, mounted to the VM and installed those exact tools? Things like "Restart guest" that depend on the Tools seem to work just fine...

So clearly upgrading from 5.0 U1 to 5.1.0 U1 was not a good thing when it comes to unlocker... (really at the end of the day, no upgrade from anyone is perfect...) so whether it was vCenter setting left behind or a combination of things, I can say from my experience it was night and day if you want to utilize unlocker. Thanks guys!

(Now I have to do my second host an HP DL360 with MSA70, but have to prep that as well for this type of fresh install, need sleep... )

[MSoK]

madburg, on 15 May 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

So I finished (at 2am) installing from scratch/fresh, it was interesting to see how from even the very beginning steps like the usb key, it was partitioned differently by 5.1.0 U1... vmnic's assignments changed, that screwed me up a bit. under 5.0 U1 I had vmnic0-4, now under 5.1.0 U1 I had vmnic 1-5. Getting by mgmt network under my LAG was a mother f'er as I been through this before with 5.0, installing the updated mpt2sas drivers, setting scratch/syslog locations configuration, license, port groups, local balance, all over again, anyways... all the backups and screenshot help out alot. So I was now running 5.1.0 U1 FRESH as a summer breeze

Interestingly (this is all before applying unlocker) I was seeing high cpu utilization upon reboots (no VMs running) last quite some time. During that time the Health Status (CIM) where showing normal with stats. Once the CPU utilization dropped like it should since no VMs where running, the Health Status change to unknown and lost stats... So it is not an unlocker thing (THANKS VMWARE! you figure by U1 things like this would be working).

So a nervous as I was, I installed unlocker v110. HOLY SHIZZLES, the test 10.8.3 guest I had waiting, booted that dmg quick fast and I was on my way (you have to use the disk utility to erase the VM disk, then only can you install), no issue between reboots, no issues at all. Proceeded to move on to powering on my previous 10.7.x VM (with the data I need) booted right up!!! So I am back to OS X virtualization, sweet.

So one one question I can think of at the moment, VM Tools displays "Running (unsupported)" is that to be expected. I copied the darwin.iso that was included in the unlocker v110 source to the datastore, mounted to the VM and installed those exact tools? Things like "Restart guest" that depend on the Tools seem to work just fine...

So clearly upgrading from 5.0 U1 to 5.1.0 U1 was not a good thing when it comes to unlocker... (really at the end of the day, no upgrade from anyone is perfect...) so whether it was vCenter setting left behind or a combination of things, I can say from my experience it was night and day if you want to utilize unlocker. Thanks guys!

madburg,

Great news, glad your OS X is up and running under 5.1.0 U1, as you should probably expect U1 is a significant upgrade over 5.1.0 even if you have kept up to date with the patches. In terms of VMware tools do not use the ones supplied in the "Unlocker" just go to Inventory > Virtual Machine > Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools this will install the latest tools for OS X and then in Summary you should see VMware Tools: Running (Current).

In terms of upgrading and the "Unlocker" your configuration with vCenter was probably carrying a lot of baggage that may well have contributed to your problems, especially trying to run OS X.

I know this is not always possible, but if you want to run something outside the box, i.e. OS X VM(s) under ESXi not on Apple hardware then keep it simple and keep it separate. If you want a cluster, vCenter and OS X then buy a coupe of the latest generation MiniMac's.

[madburg]

Oh man, so do you recommend I FIRST uninstall the (just delete the .app ?) unlocker VMTools, then install the ESXi VMTools. Or Just run the install (and hope) it either uninstall's or upgrades the unlocker ones, that explains why I am receiving "unsupported" status for the tools.

Yeah, much appreciate all the guidance. Back when I found out about insanelymac and unlocker I was already running a cluster and vCenter, I learned quickly it was a no go. By just removing the control of the host via vCenter was enough, but like you said this baggage must have cared over and was a receipt for bad things to come (which it did ). I will definitely check out the new mini mac's but what do you do to get redundant storage for VMs? at least Raid 1...  as I miss vCenter, vMotion, etc....

[MSoK]

madburg, on 16 May 2013 - 02:31 AM, said:

Oh man, so do you recommend I FIRST uninstall the (just delete the .app ?) unlocker VMTools, then install the ESXi VMTools. Or Just run the install (and hope) it either uninstall's or upgrades the unlocker ones, that explains why I am receiving "unsupported" status for the tools.

Yeah, much appreciate all the guidance. Back when I found out about insanelymac and unlocker I was already running a cluster and vCenter, I learned quickly it was a no go. By just removing the control of the host via vCenter was enough, but like you said this baggage must have cared over and was a receipt for bad things to come (which it did ). I will definitely check out the new mini mac's but what do you do to get redundant storage for VMs? at least Raid 1...  as I miss vCenter, vMotion, etc....

If you select the Install/Upgrade option it will mount the correct darwin.iso and give you the option to install or Uninstall VMware Tools, select Uninstall and once complete re-boot your OS X VM, then once back up select the Install option, this should then allow you to install the latest VMware Tools for ESXi 5.1.0 U1 (Build 1065491).

In terms of shared storage for a MiniMac ESXi cluster, have a look at the following thread on VMware Communities:

http://communities.v...tart=0&tstart=0

While the thread deals with issues of installing ESXi 5.1.0 on the new 2012 MiniMac's it also talks about Thunderbolt ethernet support and external RAID storage, a useful point of reference if you are looking at installing ESXi 5.1.0. But please be aware an SMC patch is required if you want to run OS X without the "Unlocker", so a patched install ISO is required, see the following link for the latest patched version of the ESXi 5.1.0 U1 Install ISO:

http://www.virtually...n-mac-mini.html

[madburg]

Thanks MSok!

[MSoK]

Acestes, on 14 May 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Firstly thank you for the unlocker! It works really well on workstation 9, but I am having some trouble with ESXi. I'm running ESXi 5.1 U1 (Build 1065491) and I'm using the vSphere client that came with it, but I can't see any changes that the unlocker has made, should I? For example when I create a new VM I see the option for OSX 10.7, but not 10.8, is that normal once unlocked as I already had those options before I ran the unlocker? As far as I know the uinlocker installed OK, or at least I didn't get any error messages. Any help is much appreciated and if you need any more information please just ask.

P.S. I'm quote new to Linux\ESXi so I may have not done something that is obvious!

Acestes,
OK, ESXi 5.1.0 and 5.1.0 U1 do support OS X 10.8, however the default VM Version is 8 which only shows as supporting 10.7, hence you only see the option to install OS X 10.7 you need VM version 9 to provide support for 10.8 and see it as an installable option. In truth installing 10.8 using the 10.7 64-bit install option works fine, as does VM Version 8, in fact I have yet to get a VM Version 9 of OS X 10.8 to work under ESXi, although VM Version 9 works fine on Workstation 9.0.2.

In terms of the "Unlocker" it removes/disables the SMC checker built in to ESXi which prevents OS X from installing or running on non Apple hardware, a requirement for VMware to meet the Apple EULA for OS X VM's.

Acestes, on 15 May 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

Thanks madburg. I just thought with VMware anouncing support for 10.8.3 in U1 they would at least let you choose 10.8 as an option, obviously not. I'll have to give it a go this weekend and see if I can get OSX up and running, although my machine is AMD based so it will probably be more of a challenge

AMD processors are not supported by Apple, and therefore a Vanilla OS X install is not going to work, you will have to look for an alternative distribution or kernel with AMD support, in either case the "Unlocker" is of no value as it is only designed for a Vanilla install on Intel VT-x enabled CPU's, sorry!

madburg, on 16 May 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

Thanks MSok!

Not a problem, nearly always here to help!

[Acestes]

Thanks MSoK for the clarification about the unlocker.

I’ve managed to get OS X 10.8.3 running on my AMD processor ESXi server, although VMware Tools needed a little modification and for some reason the ‘Fit Guest’ doesn’t appear to work which is slightly annoying. Maybe someone with more knowledge will know why?

For anyone interested in getting OS X 10.8.3 working on an HP Microserver N54L running ESXi 5.1 U1 here is a brief list steps:

Patch ESXi using the tool found on this site – This may not be needed, but I had already patched it
Find a copy of an AMD patched VM for VMware Workstation
Download vCenter Convertor Standalone Client 5.1 – must be 5.1 as 5.0 seems to crash
Convert the workstation image to ESXi which making sure to convert to version 8 NOT version 9 as per the default – You may also want to use a thin provisioned disk rather than a thick one
After the conversion and BEFORE booting remove the NIC and add a new one, change the OS to OS X 10.7 and make sure the RAM is at least 2GB – I found VMware Tools would crash on install with anything less
Boot the VM and set up an account etc.
Take a snapshot of the VM – optional
Install VMware Tools but DO NOT reboot!
Use Finder to go to ‘/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools’
Delete’ vmmemctl.kext’ and ‘vmmemctl’
From terminal run ‘sudo nano /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/services.sh’
Comment out these two lines using # so they look like:

#kextload '/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vmmemctl.kext'
#'/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vmmemctl'

Reboot and enjoy!


Note: Depending on which version of VMware Tools you use you might get another kernel panic mentioning ‘vsockets.kext’ and you will need to also do the following steps before rebooting, which is why you took the snapshot!

Delete ‘vsockets.kext’ and ‘vsock’
From terminal run ‘sudo nano /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/services.sh’
Comment out these two lines using # so they look like:

#kextload -r '/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/’ '/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vsockets.kext’ | | true
#'/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vsock’ | | true

[MSoK]

Acestes, on 18 May 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Thanks MSoK for the clarification about the unlocker.

I’ve managed to get OS X 10.8.3 running on my AMD processor ESXi server, although VMware Tools needed a little modification and for some reason the ‘Fit Guest’ doesn’t appear to work which is slightly annoying. Maybe someone with more knowledge will know why?

For anyone interested in getting OS X 10.8.3 working on an HP Microserver N54L running ESXi 5.1 U1 here is a brief list steps:

Acestes,

Thanks for the guide, I have looked at the HP ProLiant MicroServer a number of times as a possible ESXi host, but always been put off by the AMD processor and my desire to run OS X as near to Vanilla as possible, but if you are happy to modify your OS X installation the MicroServer offers an inexpensive root to ESXi virtualisation, it will however run vanilla Linux and Windows VM's without issues.

An alternative, not quite as inexpensive but does use an Intel Core i3 or Xeon E3 processor is the HP ProLiant ML110 G7, so offers a vanilla install of OS X, once the "Unlocker" has been applied to ESXi.

[Acestes]

To be honest I didn't even think about running OS X on it when I bought it as I'm a Windows administrator, so most of my time is spent on that, and I just needed a cheap little ESXi server to do some development work on. It was only later I thought about running OS X. It actually runs quite well, it's not as fast as my i7, but that's not exactly a suprise. I think my main bottle neck is hard drive speed when using cheap drives and no RAID, but once everything is up and running it does the job it was bought for. I do actually have another development box which is an i5 so it would have been easier to use that, but where's the fun in that?