How to Install Retail OS X 10.6 "Snow" and OS X 10.7 "Lion" under VMware ESXi 5

[aprodigy]

@flexyz and others: interesting. having the same problem as you (_cst evaluation failed) and hanging up from there. however, i'm coming from a different side since i'm using a xserve 2,1 (yea, i know, should be 3,1, but 10.6.0 up to 10.6.7 work all well without any hassle on that machine). i tried to identify the problem but not a single thing did help along the way (well, booting into -x has always been working fine though), i.e.:

 

*) used different kernels and extension sets (modbins, nawcoms, stock 10.6 up to 10.6.7)

*) got rid of startup items, launch daemons / agents and such things

*) played around with esxi's vmx properties for hours

*) removed nearly everything possible (usb, ethernet, floppy, serial et cetera pp) from the machine configuration

*) tried the esxi-patch 1.02 even though i was expecting it not to help me here

 

i was even desperate enough to put fakesmc in place but that's didn't make anything better either.

 

does any one of you have a clue what's going on here?

 

i haven't seen a single (halfway) obvious error in any log nor is any kernel i tried panicing and again: every os x server release from 10.6.0 up to 10.6.7 works very well on that 2,1 xserve.

 

what did i miss that has been changed with 10.6.8?

 

-aprodigy

[yozh]

Any one with 10.7.3 working?

[Herb_Davis_Y2K]

ESXi 5.0.0 515841

Installed 10.7.3 Combo update

Patched AppleLSIFusionMPT.kext

 

Works on my end

 

 

Edit: Updated ESXi to 515841

[Wiedzmin479]

Hi.

Is it possible to install VMWare ESXi on USB drive, than put on this drive Mac OS (special image for VMWare or self-made, doesn't matter) or put Mac on additional USB drive or external HDD and boot it on any PC/Mac?

I know, that ESXi could be installed on USB drive, but I have doubts will it run Mac OS on any PC (with non-server hardware).

Thanks a lot for your help.

[giando76]

I would to install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on ESXi 5 and I followed this guide

 

http://tickett.wordp...-5/#comment-585

 

but i can't understand how be possible booting from usb in apple virtual machine. I can't find specific option in the EFI.

 

Can someone explain me how do it?

 

 

Thanks

G.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps: My Server:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300

 

Motherboard: Intel DQ45CB

 

 

 

RAM: 8GB

HDD: 6x250GB WD Scorpio Black

 

ODD: DVD-R/RW/DL Slim

[SUPERMAC512]

Hello

 

I like to install Mac OS X Lion (iso image) on my ESXi 5 Server (Version 623860).

 

No Matter what i Try, (Boot with verbose mode, or reconfig the vmx File) the power up stops at on same point.

I Power on the vm, After the gray Apple it shows me a white screen with the "spinning wheel of death".

 

Thats all, no CD Menu, no Error message

 

What can i do?

 

[MSoK]

Hello

 

I like to install Mac OS X Lion (iso image) on my ESXi 5 Server (Version 623860).

 

No Matter what i Try, (Boot with verbose mode, or reconfig the vmx File) the power up stops at on same point.

I Power on the vm, After the gray Apple it shows me a white screen with the "spinning wheel of death".

 

Thats all, no CD Menu, no Error message

 

What can i do?

 

SM512,

 

Not sure what the problem is, we probably need some more information, i.e. hardware, vmx file and log files (in text format please), I have in the last few days rebuilt my ESXi Server from scratch with Update 1, Build 623860 and the 1.0.2 "all" unlocker, and installed my Lion 10.7.3 dmg without any issues. The dmg was just copied out of the content of an App Store download in a Snow Leopard VM installed fresh, again on ESXi 5.0.0 U1 Build 623860.

[SUPERMAC512]

SM512,

 

 

 

Not sure what the problem is, we probably need some more information, i.e. hardware, vmx file and log files (in text format please), I have in the last few days rebuilt my ESXi Server from s...

 

 

 

Hello

 

Thanks for fast Replay.

 

I found the issue.

 

First I start the uninstaller of the newest Patch and after this I installed it again. I rebooted the Host. After this the VM starts the Mac OS X Lion 10.7.0 CD (Image).

I see the Harddrive and installed the System without any errors.

I also started the Apple Software Update.

Now it works with newest Version of Lion (10.7.3) and Lion Server Tools installed.

 

Hardware Details:

Intel Modular Server

with 32GB RAM, Intel XEON Server Prozessor

VM vSphere 5 update 1

 

 

Regards

 

Florian

[conte]

Hi all,

I was wondering if this has been tried before and how to solve this issue:

I am on ESXI 5.0.0, succesfully installed and upgraded OS X to 10.6.8. I have (I think successfully, see second screenshot below) done a PCI passthrough of my Nvidia Quadro 2000 to the OS, however I don't think this is being fully recognized as the system is still using the emulated ESXI video card (firstscreenshot) and i get no signal through the DVI in the card.

I have tried some of the methods (aquamac/gfxutil and EFIstudio, downloaded Tonymac's drivers for Nvidia) that actually work if I do a 'straight' OS X install on the machine - but do not seem to work on the vanilla install on ESXI.

Any ideas on how to force OS X to recognize and use my card?

 

My goal is to run Win7 and OS X in parallel and full functionality with 2 Quadros (passthrough worked after a bit of fiddling in Win7 and I have as far as I can see full card functionality) so this is a case of being sooooo close yet so far away. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks again for all your efforts in getting OS X to ESXI

[neuroman]

Hi all,

I was wondering if this has been tried before and how to solve this issue:

I am on ESXI 5.0.0, succesfully installed and upgraded OS X to 10.6.8. I have (I think successfully, see second screenshot below) done a PCI passthrough of my Nvidia Quadro 2000 to the OS, however I don't think this is being fully recognized as the system is still using the emulated ESXI video card (firstscreenshot) and i get no signal through the DVI in the card.

I have tried some of the methods (aquamac/gfxutil and EFIstudio, downloaded Tonymac's drivers for Nvidia) that actually work if I do a 'straight' OS X install on the machine - but do not seem to work on the vanilla install on ESXI.

Any ideas on how to force OS X to recognize and use my card?

 

My goal is to run Win7 and OS X in parallel and full functionality with 2 Quadros (passthrough worked after a bit of fiddling in Win7 and I have as far as I can see full card functionality) so this is a case of being sooooo close yet so far away. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks again for all your efforts in getting OS X to ESXI

 

Unless you are using a natively supported video cards, you are going to have a hard time getting this card working. The way it's done on Hackintoshes is using the boot loader to "inject" the card information but using ESXi you loose that ability. The only thing I can think of trying to install the latest NVIDIA drivers for QUADRO cards which worked for my GTX460 SE in a non-vitualized setting.

Hopefully you will get it working.

Good luck.

[beamerblvd]

So, I successfully got Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion installed and running smoothly, with VMware tools, in ESXi 5.0 Update 1 on a Dell Precision 490 (2 x dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 processors, 32GB RAM capacity, 12GB RAM installed, Perc 5/i RAID5 across 5 1TB drives + battery backup module).

 

However, it was not simple, and it was not without some pain, so I wanted to share my experiences here so that others might benefit from it, and also so that Donk or MSoK might point out if I made anything harder on myself than it needed to be.

 

Installing ESX 5.0 Update 1 was a breeze. I actually already had 4.1 Update 1 installed, and upgraded just so that I could run Snow and Lion on it. I've tried for years to run Leopard and Snow on 3.5 and 4.0 and 4.1 using three other methods, but none of them worked before. This is the first one that worked.

 

Installing Donk's unlocker on ESXi was a breeze. Done and rebooted in 5 minutes.

 

My first attempt at a Snow Leopard install was a fail. I attached the ISO to the DVD and booted, but I could only get it to go the grey Apple screen. After two or three minutes, the Apple turned into the dreaded circle with a slash through it. After looking around a bit, I decided maybe my problem was the CPUID mask (even though I didn't have one of the CPUs listed as problem CPUs, I did have a similar one), so I decided to give those a try.

 

By the way, for you ESXi users who DO actually need it, there is a much easier way to set the CPUID mask for ESXi. Instead of adding this to the VMX file:

 

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

 

Which requires removing the VM from inventory, downloading the VMX file, changing it, re-uploading it, and re-adding the VM to inventory, there's a GUI interface for changing it. Edit the VM settings with the VM powered off, click on the Options tab, click on the CPUID Mask menu item, click Advanced, scroll to the bottom of the window on the Virtual Machine Default tab, and under "Level 1" set "eax" to 0000:0000:0000:0001:0000:0110:1010:0101. After clicking OK and OK, the correct directive will be added to the VMX file for you. Much easier.

 

However, this did not successfully fix the boot problem. So after a bit more looking around, I figured out that I could delay the boot time (I set it to 5000 ms) and press F8 on the VMware screen to get to the EFI menu. I booted from the DVD in verbose mode using the EFI menu:

 

- Select "Boot Manager" and then "EFI Internal Shell (Unsupported Option)"

- Type the following commands:

 

Shell> fs0:

fs0\:> cd \usr\standalone\i386

fs0:\usr\standalone\i386> boot -v

 

Now I could see what the problem was: "Still waiting for root device" gets printed over and over again. Removing the CPUID mask did not resolve the issue, so I knew that wasn't the cause and that I didn't even need the CPUID mask, if I'd gotten that far. After looking around about the "Still waiting for root device" message, I discovered (thanks to this blog) it didn't like my IDE virtual CD/DVD drive. What to do? I removed the CD/DVD drive and tried to re-create it as SCSI, but found that my only options were IDE 0:0, IDE 0:1, IDE 1:0 and IDE 1:1. There were no SCSI options like some had suggested.

 

So I popped my retail SL disk into my host DVD drive, removed the CD/DVD drive and added a virtual SCSI device pointing to my real DVD drive, but no matter what I did or how long I waited or anything, my virtual machine could not find the DVD to even boot from it (so I wasn't even making it to the gray Apple screen now ... backwards progress). After a bit more reading, I decided to try my USB DVD drive. My understanding was that the USB drive was supposed to be set up the same way ... as a virtual SCSI device pointing to the USB drive; however, the USB drive was not showing up as an option on my virtual SCSI device.

 

This knowledge base article set me straight, explaining that you can't hot plug USB drives in ESXi. As an alternative to restarting the host, running this command on the host sufficed (and, if you're comfortable enough running Donk's unlocker, you should be comfortable running this):

 

/etc/init.d/hostd restart &

 

I added the SCSI device and there was my USB DVD drive. I booted the VM and voila, I could boot from the retail install disk. Within 30 minutes I had Snow Leopard installed, running and updated to the latest version.

 

Now, I could have cloned the machine and upgraded the clone to Lion, but I'm a stickler for clean installs; I don't like upgrading. So I created a Lion boot disk using these instructions, then created an ISO from that boot disk. As expected, Lion would not boot from the virtual CD/DVD ISO (I had to try), so I popped it in the USB DVD Drive and, once again, within 30 minutes I had a running, updated Lion install.

 

VMware Tools installed on both machines seamlessly via the "Install VMware Tools" menu in vSphere Client.

 

So there you have it. Hopefully this will help someone else. And maybe Donk or MSoK could point out one or more stupid mistakes I was making that would have made this whole process easier otherwise.

[Ruy_Go]

I have a ESXi 5.0.0 Build 469512 running on Intel Core i7 2600k // 8GB DDR 3 // Intel MotherBoard DH61CR //

I've success to Install OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on this scenario.

So to make this VM, i followed this steps.

 

1 - Download the file: unlock-all-v102.zip to ESXi datastore and Expand the file.

2 - Enter on unlock-all-v102/esxi folder and run install.sh

3 - Reboot the server.

4 - Create the VM with recomended installation

5 - With ssh, edit the vmx file and put this code into the file: cpuid.1.eax = "0000:0000:0000:0001:0000:0110:1010:0101"

6 - Save and quit of editor.

7 - Finally Edit the VM with vSphere client.

7.1 - Click on Edit Settings, and Add a SCSI Device.

7.2 - Choose your DVD Rom Drive, And set the Device Node to: SCSI (0:1)

8 - Power On the Virtual Machine and when the VMWARE Logo appears, hit F8

9 - Select Boot Manager

10 - And Finally Select EFI SCSI CD/DVD Drive.

 

Install Your OSX and be Happy.

 

Sorry about my poor english.

 

If u need help just contact-me at: umhost.com.br

Thank you all!

[SUPERMAC512]

Hello

 

 

Today I test the new update from Lion Server (10.7.4). Installation works fin but after Reboot the server comes not up.

 

I Boot in Verbose Mode. There Start Process stopped at PCI Configuration, thats all.

I booed the Recovery Image and Start Volume and Permission Rep. But nothing changed.

 

Now i go Back to 10.7.3 Server!

 

Hardware Details:

Intel Modular Server

with 32GB RAM, Intel XEON Server Prozessor

VM vSphere 5 update 1

 

 

Regards

 

Florian

[tinue]

Could anyone install Lion (Server) on an AMD Turion CPU? I run ESXi 5 Build 623860, on an HP MicroServer N40L.

It doesn't even load the kernel:

 

efiboot loaded from device: Acpi(PNP0A03,0)/Pci(11|0)Pci(2|0)Isb(0, 0)HP(Part

2,Sig[many numbers]

boot file path: \/boot.efi

.Loading kernel cache file '\kernelcache'...

..................

root device uuid is '[many numbers]'

 

and then nothing.

 

The 10.7.3 install image is on a USB stick which is properly accessed (i.e. without USB stick it stops at the EFI boot screen, with USB sticks it gets stuck at the apple logo screen).

boot -v gives the above few lines.

 

My guess is that it doesn't like the CPU.

 

The same Stick was used successfully on another (Intel i7-2600) PC with VMWare Workstation 8 to install Lion Server.

 

Thanks! Martin

[Donk]

Not going to work on AMD.

[SUPERMAC512]

Has anybody installed the newest Lion Server Update (10.7.4) on an VM that runs on VMWare esxi 5.0 Host?

[VMwareMacMan]

We would like to get, a version of Mac OS X running on our ESXi 5.0 host servers, we currently have many Mini Macs, but because of overhead of management, and the fact that they are very stealable, they are currently locked in the datacentre, and access is provided by VNC.

 

We would much rather, have virtual machine versions running on ESXi 5.0, and the fact we have real hardware, are "comfortable with the breach of license" at present.

 

We have Dell Poweredge 2950 and R710s, with the unlocked patch applied, but still fails to install. We have a Snow Leopard DMG, which we have converted to ISO, this works perfect, and boots/installs on VMware Workstation 8.0 (with the unlocker patch - thanks).

 

Apple Mac OS X 10.6 (64 bit) has been selected as the VM Template.

 

Processors in Physical Servers are Intel Xeon L5335 and X5560. Plenty of RAM, Plenty of hard disk storage.

 

But when booting the ISO, I get the grey screen, and spinning wheel, which I believe from googling is a non-starter!

 

 

If I select EFI Internal Shell (unsupported options)...

 

fs0:

\usr\standalone\i386\boot -v

 

I guess, the VM is booting from the cdrom, until....

 

ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin::pushCPU_CSRData - _CST evaluation failed

 

I'm not sure if the above is correct and preventing installation?

 

I've also tried

 

‘boot -v npci=0×2000′

 

Any ideas, would be very welcome, thanks (and great unlock!)

 

I've also converted my DMG using TransMac (not sure if this works) to a 16GB USB flash drive, and connected to the VM, at BOOT, the Boot Manager detects the USB because I have USB in the list, but it does not boot from USB.

 

Maybe the DMG conversion to USB was incorrect? Ideas....I do have macs at my disposal, but have failed to create a dmg to usb boot disk.

[wxe911]

After many trial and error to get SL Server installed on ESXi 5.0 U1 623860 and reading a lot of posts.

Yes, I have unlock 1.02 installed and rebooted.

Also I tried to boot from different OSX version like SL 10.6, Lion 10.7.2

 

It always hang on the gray graphics screen with the beach ball.

 

On my ESXi PC I had a LITE-ON iHAS124-06Y DVD-RW attached.

I then finally replaced with a Pioneer DVR-219BLK and in no time the OSX installer presented itself.

 

Cheers,

WXE911

 

Update:

- Dowloaded and installed ComboUpdate 10.6.8 v1.1

- Installed VMware tools via vsphere client option.

 

- Installed Firefox and update flash player. It won't play youtube and other flash stuff though.

- Maybe someone have a tip for me to get that to work.

 

Boot time:

From launch of the server to the login prompt takes about 50 seconds. After login the desktop is there within 10 seconds or so.

That is reasonable for me. Within virtual machine response is good.

[SUPERMAC512]

I have a Problem with Lion Server VM installed on VMware ESXi 5 (768111).

 

The LionServer works fin but I can not expand the Lion System Disc. In VMare I expand the Disc-File from 100G to 200GB. After I Restart the VM the Disc shows the new Free Disc-Space. But I can not expand the LionHD. I test it booted from System with Disc Utility and with Terminal and i also test it booted from Lion Boot CD. There is no error Message.

 

How can I expand the system Disc?

Can anybody test it on a Lion Server?

 

Regards

SM512

 

 

[alexiskai]

We are having an issue that just cropped up after some updates were done on our ESXi 5 hosts. Not sure what updates caused the issue. At first, a previously-functional 10.7.4 VM wouldn't boot at all. It just sat there at "PCI Configuration Begin." I Googled around and tried inserting npci=0x2000 into the boot flags, and that got it to boot somewhat, but now it won't boot to the GUI. It gives a warning that only root can launch the Window Server and then just sits there. Some services are running, e.g. Apache and SSH, but no GUI. I'm wondering whether the npci instruction got it confused about where its monitor was.

 

Adding the -x flag to boot causes it to hang at "Load com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet failed; removing personalities from kernel."

 

I also have a "known good" 10.7.2 VM that's having precisely the same problems. Something seems to have changed on the hosts, but we don't know what. I tried this on two different hosts with the same results.

 

 

VMX file as follows:

#!/usr/bin/vmware
.encoding = "UTF-8"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "8"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
pciBridge0.present = "true"
pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"
pciBridge4.present = "true"
pciBridge4.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge4.functions = "8"
pciBridge4.pciSlotNumber = "21"
pciBridge5.present = "true"
pciBridge5.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge5.functions = "8"
pciBridge5.pciSlotNumber = "22"
pciBridge6.present = "true"
pciBridge6.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge6.functions = "8"
pciBridge6.pciSlotNumber = "23"
pciBridge7.present = "true"
pciBridge7.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge7.functions = "8"
pciBridge7.pciSlotNumber = "24"
vmci0.present = "true"
vmci0.pciSlotNumber = "35"
vmci0.id = "1635665540"
hpet0.present = "true"
powerType.powerOff = "soft"
powerType.powerOn = "hard"
powerType.suspend = "hard"
powerType.reset = "soft"
displayName = "neurobiology"
numvcpus = "2"
cpuid.coresPerSocket = "2"
scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.sharedBus = "none"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"
memsize = "2048"
sched.scsi0:0.shares = "normal"
sched.scsi0:0.throughputCap = "none"
sched.scsi0:1.throughputCap = "none"
sched.cpu.min = "0"
sched.cpu.units = "mhz"
sched.cpu.shares = "normal"
sched.mem.min = "0"
sched.mem.shares = "normal"
ethernet0.present = "true"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.networkName = "DMZ"
ethernet0.addressType = "vpx"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:50:56:8a:1f:c1"
ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "33"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
usb.present = "true"
usb.pciSlotNumber = "32"
usb:1.present = "TRUE"
usb:1.speed = "2"
usb:1.deviceType = "hub"
usb:1.port = "1"
usb:1.parent = "-1"
ehci.present = "true"
ehci.pciSlotNumber = "34"
svga.autodetect = "true"
chipset.onlineStandby = "false"
ich7m.present = "true"
firmware = "efi"
guestOS = "darwin11-64"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 20 3a 2a 73 c0 60-17 1f 5a 07 61 7e 46 84"
uuid.location = "56 4d 36 34 26 28 b6 16-05 6d 40 ab 83 82 1f 70"
vc.uuid = "50 0a a2 09 ae 7e d7 fd-5c 2b e9 aa c3 46 96 be"
ctkEnabled = "false"
snapshot.action = "keep"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"
tools.remindInstall = "FALSE"
tools.syncTime = "false"
replay.supported = "FALSE"
evcCompatibilityMode = "TRUE"
vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "33554432"
cleanShutdown = "FALSE"
uuid.action = "keep"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.fileName = "neurobiology.vmdk"
scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
sched.swap.derivedName = "/vmfs/volumes/4ec2ebc8-cb031ec3-ddda-a4badb1160b0/neurobiology/neurobiology-1e4056b6.vswp"
replay.filename = ""
scsi0:0.redo = ""
hostCPUID.0 = "0000000b756e65476c65746e49656e69"				
hostCPUID.1 = "000106a510100800009ce3bdbfebfbff"	
hostCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000128100800"
guestCPUID.0 = "0000000b756e65476c65746e49656e69"  
guestCPUID.1 = "000106a400020800809822091febfbff"
guestCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000128100800"
userCPUID.0 = "0000000b756e65476c65746e49656e69"
userCPUID.1 = "000106a510100800009822091febfbff"
userCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000128100800"
bios.forceSetupOnce = "FALSE"
scsi0:1.present = "FALSE"
smc.present = "FALSE"  
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
usb:0.present = "TRUE"							  
usb:0.deviceType = "hid"	
usb:0.port = "0"									  
usb:0.parent = "-1" 

 

Another thing that I think is related is that the WindowServer process is not running. Launching it does nothing, whether I start the plist through launchd or launch it directly from the command line (except it turns the screen white and then quits).

[elliotnunn]

MSoK,

 

I am trying to install Lion and Mountain Lion on VMs in ESXi 5.0U1. My host is an IBM System x3550 with a pair of dual-core Xeons (5400 or something in that generation).

 

I can use the vSphere wizard to set up a VM, but the BaseSystem.dmg installer (when booted in verbose mode via EFI shell) always hangs at "Kernel is LP64", right after "BSD root: disk-something". I have tried booting from an already-installed copy of Lion in a DMG, and that hangs at the same place. I have tried changing the NX capability on the host, and I have tried using the CPUID mask specified earlier in this thread. Nothing lets it start up any further. I have even tried using Chameleon as a bootloader with FakeSMC.kext on the installer.

 

Thanks to you and Donk for your great work, and thanks in advance for any help that you can give me.

 

Elliot.

[elliotnunn]

MSoK,

 

I have (finally figured this out) attached my .vmx and .log files in this post. Sorry about that!

 

Cheers,

Elliot

vmware-2.log.txt

Lion.vmx.txt

[MSoK]

MSoK,

 

I have (finally figured this out) attached my .vmx and .log files in this post. Sorry about that!

 

Cheers,

Elliot

Elliot,

 

Sorry I was not able to respond to your request over the weekend. I am glad you have managed to resolve your problem, what was your solution?

 

Regards MSoK.

[alexiskai]

I think he means he finally figured out how to attach files to forum posts. FWIW, I haven't figured out my problem either.

[MSoK]

I think he means he finally figured out how to attach files to forum posts. FWIW, I haven't figured out my problem either.

Alex,

Doh, silly me, read the quote completely wrong, I will look at the files Elliot has uploaded.

 

In terms of your problem, your vmx config file looks OK, execpt I would expect smc.present = "TRUE" not "FALSE". Also if you use the latest "Unlocker" it will probably need re-running following ESXi 5 patching.

 

MSoK