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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 5.x on new Apple Mac Mini 6,2 Late 2012 *NOT* working

Hello!

I bought one of the new MacMinis, which were presented yesteraday, plugged two 8GiB DD3-1600 modules in (OsX reported 16GiB of memory, as the models before) and tried to install ESXi 5.1 Build 799733. It started promising:

Initializing chipset...

Initializing timing...

Initializing scheduler...

Initializing processors...

Initializing ACPI...

*BANG*

Pink screen! Smiley Sad

NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/intel/vtd.c:3638

cr0=0x8001003d cr2=0x0 cr3=0x449ad500 cr4=0x12c

*PCPU0:4096/bootstrap

PCPU  0: SISISISISISISIS

Code start: 0x41800c600000 VMK uptime: 0:00:00:04.301

and a stackdump.

macmini.png

I tried instalkling 5.0 and 5.0 U1 also, but with the same result.

It is the regular MacMini with an i7 4C 2.3GHz and one 1TB SATA drive (http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD388LL/A with no extras), not the MacMini Server.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

PS1: I was unable to boot the ESXi setup from USB key! Since other USB keys (OsX setup for example) didn't work either, I suspect that there's some EFI boot problem from the new USB3 ports. Booting from CD worked, however.

PS2: on the earlies models we had the problem, that the Alt key wasn't recognized after powering on, when there is an USB hub between the keyboard and the Mac (a KVM switch for example). That seems to be fixed now: whenever I press the Alt key at the powerup chime, I get the Apple "boot menu", even with our KVM switch in between.

338 Replies
ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

I have the standard i7-3615QM 2.3GHz 4C and VT-d is working.

I probably won't buy the other new models ever, because 2Cs are too few for virtualization and the second harddisk in the MacMini Server makes no sense with ESXi. From the last model we always bought the Server, because it was the only MacMini with 4C.

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oturn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@ViennaAustria: Thanks again for confirming. I'm leaning towards the non-server i7-3720QM / 2.6GHz quad core model. My plans are to add an aftermarket second hard drive kit.

I'm currently running ESXi 5.1 on a 2011 i7-2635QM / 2.0 quad core Mini. I'm booting from a 180GB SSD, with the remaining space dedicated to a datastore. The second drive is 1TB, comprising datastore 2. My critical servers are on the SSD, and my less critical servers are on the physical disk. I have redundant offsite backups. However, I do sorely miss VT-d / VMDirectPath I/O support. I'm looking forward to the upgrade.

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zer010gic
Contributor
Contributor

So I got ESXi to install with NIC support on a 6,2 mini but When I try to create an OSX VM I am not having any luck.  Right now I have the grey apple logo screen with the spinning beachball.  I tried importing an OVF of OS X Lion and it would not boot either.  Has anyone got OS X to install in a VM on one of these Mac Minis yet?

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RiteshA
Contributor
Contributor

Folks,

I am getting stuck in the "No network adapter were detected" screen. For the earlier version of Mac Mini, the installation would progress even if the network adapter couldn't be found.

For this new version of the Mac Mini, the installation halts unless the network adapter is detected. Not sure if there is a way to disable the check and then load the driver post ESXi installation. I even created a bundled image with BRCM drivers using the instructions here

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/05/thats-so-cool-running-esxi-5-on-apple.html

I also modified the .V00 files as recommended in this thread. There were actually two files with 1688 in the original Net-TG3.V00 version and I changed both to 1686. Could someone post modified .V00 file here? Also, if there is a modified ISO that has updated drivers, I'd appreciate a pointer for me to try it out.  At this point, I just want to get past the "No Network adapter were detected" screen.

I am using:

ESXi 5.0.0 (VMkernel release build 468512)

I also tried ESXi 5.1.0 (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.1.0-799733.x86_64) & driver version 50.1 (tg3-3.123b.v50.1-offline_bundle-682322) without luck.

Thanks a lot for your help.

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RiteshA
Contributor
Contributor

Saltmaster,

I dont have the server version. Could that be the problem? I am using the following.

2.3GHz Mac mini

  • 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
  • 4GB memory
  • 1TB hard drive1
  • Intel HD Graphics 4000
  • OS X Mountain Lion

Does it have a different PCI id/BRCM chip? That would be weird but I can not explain otherwise.


Thanks for your help.

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saltmaster
Contributor
Contributor

@RiteshA: That is the same model of hardware that I have. Late 2012 MacMini, i7 Quad Core, 1TB harddrive, 4 GB ram. It has a NIC that uses the tg3 drivers.

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zer010gic
Contributor
Contributor

Here is my modified NET-TG3 file.

Corey

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

@zer010gic: I have the very same problem.

10.7.4 presents a white screen with the rotating ball and doesn't go further.

10.8.0 does better: it starts the installer, I partitioned the harddisk, then came the 2 minute setup, then it rebooted, then came the 15 minute installer, it rebooted again and then I'm stuck - in verbose mode, the last line I see is

macx_swapon SUCCESS

I tried with 1,2,4 CPU cores and 2,4,8 GiB RAM. Made no difference.

wontboot.png

Being able to install VMware ESXi on Apple hardware but then being unable to run OsX in a VM is somehow missing the point... :smileyplain:

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

A much bigger problem is, that also previously installed OsX VMs do not start on the new MacMini!

I moved a 10.7.5 VM from an older MacMini5,3 (Mid 2011) to the new MacMini6,2 (Late 2012) and it hangs at the rotating circle.

After I moved it to a MacPro5,1 (Late 2010?) it booted into the desktop within ten seconds, as before.

All Apples have ESXi 5.1 build 799733.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Mac OS X is generally not portable to newer hardware.   Try dumbing down your virtual CPU by adding this option to your configuration file:

cpuid.1.eax = "----:----:----:0010:----:----:1010:0111"

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you for the suggestion, but it also didn't help.

Despite your saying, I am happily moving around 10.6.8, 10.7.x and 10.8.x OsX VMs between 0-3 year old Macs. Off course, you need some cpuid masks if the processors differ, when you use vMotion, but until now I was able to move any OsX machine to another Mac in powered off state (without cpuid masks).

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Some recent VMware products will dumb down the processor for you if you have specified an older Mac OS X release.  I wasn't sure if that support made it into ESXi 5.1.

Can you post a vmware.log file for one of the non-working VMs.

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

I did a last attempt and installed 10.8.0 (the most modern OsX CD image I have) on a MacPro5,1 with ESXi 5.1, installed the VMware Tools and all the OsX upgrades. So it became 10.8.2.

Then I added it to the inventory of the new MacMini6,2 and ran it (the question answered with "I moved the VM"). Sadly with the same result as any other OsXes I tried before: it hangs forever at the rotating circle - or at least +30 minutes now. Smiley Wink

Sad, sad, sad.

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

@jmattson:

Off course. Logfile is attached.

Thank you for helping!

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Ouch.

2012-10-31T15:59:13.119Z| vcpu-0| I120: HostSMCRead: Unable to open the driver.
2012-10-31T15:59:13.120Z| vcpu-0| I120: HostSMCRead: Unable to open the driver.

Looks like there's something different about the System Management Controller (SMC) in the MacMini6,2 that makes us unable to probe it or unable to talk to it.  I'll file an internal bug report and make sure we investigate this.

--

Darius

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ViennaAustria
Contributor
Contributor

If it would be of any help to you, I can give you full access to the machine (external IP & root pw). Since OsX VMs don't run, it is of no use at the moment.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Thomas Schallar wrote:

I did a last attempt and installed 10.8.0 (the most modern OsX CD image I have) on a MacPro5,1 with ESXi 5.1, installed the VMware Tools and all the OsX upgrades. So it became 10.8.2.

Then I added it to the inventory of the new MacMini6,2 and ran it (the question answered with "I moved the VM"). Sadly with the same result as any other OsXes I tried before: it hangs forever at the rotating circle - or at least +30 minutes now. Smiley Wink

Sad, sad, sad.

That is sad.  I'm not sure if this will help, but let's try adding these configuration options to your VM:

featMask.vm.cpuid.PCID = Max:0

featMask.vm.cpuid.SMEP = Max:0

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Never mind.  I was a few posts behind.  These options will not help.

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willplaice
Contributor
Contributor

@zer010gic

your attached net_tg3.v00 file isn't a vaild tar

can someone else post their file, i'm having huge problems creating my own, i have the tar extracted on a spare hypervisor machine, but exactly what do i edit, and how would i get the file off the esxi box, (did wget to get the file on)

Will

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saltmaster
Contributor
Contributor

The .V00 file will not extract like a normal tar file, it needs to be extracted using vmtar first and then using tar (using the version of tar on a Hypervisor machine as well). You can copy the files back and forward between the hypervisor and your local machine using scp (easist solution, just requires SSH to be active which you would have active for the other steps in the process).

I've attached the version that I used (I haven't check it, I had multiple ISO files I was using so I think this is the correct one). You need to make sure you have updated the installer image with the most recent version of the tg3 drivers before using the modified V00 file.

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