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dockeradz
Contributor
Contributor
‎10-28-2011 10:03 AM

OSX 10.7 on ESXi5

I know 10.7 is not supported on ESXi5.  However I've seen reports of some success.  I've tried many different methods of running the installer in ESXi and the vm always hangs at the white screen with the apple logo.  I also tried converting a working 10.7.0 vm from fusion and that gives me a kernel panic when I attempt to boot. 

Can anyone share how they got 107 working in ESXi5 and how they made the install media?  I've tried burning the InstallESD image to DVD among othe things and always get the white screen with the apple logo.

Thanks in advance.

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8 Replies
RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership
‎10-28-2011 10:17 AM

Are you running your ESXi on an XServe box?

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dockeradz
Contributor
Contributor
‎10-28-2011 10:19 AM

Yes, sorry should have meantioned this is on an xserve 3,1.

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golddiggie
Champion
Champion
‎10-28-2011 12:01 PM

You trying to virtualize the server or desktop OS? From my understanding, they only allow virtualizing the server OS, not the desktop flavor.

IMO, you'd be better off going with Linux...

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AKostur
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎10-28-2011 02:35 PM

Snow Leopard (10.6) was restricted to server-only.  Lion (10.7) is supposed to be virtualizable even in the "desktop" version.  (But only if you bought it from the App Store.  Apparently the licence on the pre-installed version is different....)

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dockeradz
Contributor
Contributor
‎11-02-2011 07:10 AM

I'm looking for peole who have 10.7 server running on ESXi5 now.  I have 10.6 server running successfully.  If you have 10.7 running in vsphere 5 please comment and let me know what method you used to install.

Also I would like to know if vmware is doing any work to officially support 10.7 in a future update or if this is a dead project at this point.

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zvitins
Contributor
Contributor
‎11-02-2011 08:22 AM

Hi,

acctually I tried install 10.7 on ESXi5 (file from app store), but unsuccessfully

Is there any doc about: how to install 10.7 or 10.6 on ESXi 5 ?

Thanks.

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dockeradz
Contributor
Contributor
‎11-02-2011 09:58 AM

I haven't found much documentation on anything involving ESXi and Macs.  The best hope I had came from this thread: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1851439 where it seemed the OP did an install of 10.7 in ESXi.

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dockeradz
Contributor
Contributor
‎11-09-2011 06:58 AM

The only method I could get to work was booting from a USB key, restored from an InstallESD image with a build less than 10.7.2.  Installing and upagrading from 10.6.8 worked with this method.  Of couse you can't upgrade to 10.7.2 without saving the LSI driver and putting it back.

I'm hoping this isn't just an academic exercise and VMWare will be able to officially support Lion.

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