Hello there! I'm trying to build a Vagrant box for macOS 10.13 High Sierra, in order to setup a convenient, command line driven environment for compiling macOS applications. I can script most of the macOS installation with packer, but unfortunately the boot after SetupAssistant finishes, fails. Does anyone know of a working VMX configuration to successfully install and boot High Sierra in VMware (Fusion)?
Trace
Installing: About 15 minutes remaining
...
Installing on "Macintosh HD"
...
An error occurred installing macOS. To use Apple Diagnostics to check your Mac hardware, shut down, press the power button, and immediately hold the 'D' key until diagnostics begins.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.
Restart
Screenshots
https://i.imgur.com/Fezqad1.png
https://i.imgur.com/ZMe6VUn.png
https://i.imgur.com/4UpW4lc.png
System Specs
- Guest OS: macOS 10.13 High Sierra
- Host OS: macOS 10.13 High Sierra
- Hypervisor: VMware Fusion 10
- Physical hardware: mid-2013 13" MacBook Air
Configuration
VMX: https://gist.github.com/mcandre/df4a69809afb8103ef37ae32371c6e23
ISO generation scripts, packer configuration, and VMX settings are available as a work-in-progress "macos" branch in my packer templates repository:
https://github.com/mcandre/packer-templates/tree/macos
Mitigation steps attempted
I've already tried:
- Re-generating the installer ISO image.
- Re-running the packer VM build.
- Tweaking VMX settings.
- Disabling SMC (which results in a VM that never finishes booting).
- Increasing virtual RAM to 4GB.
- Specifying the virtual hard drive as a solid state drive.
- Using VirtualBox (unfortunately, packer sends the wrong scancodes to VirtualBox for macOS guests, so packer + macOS guests + VirtualBox doesn't integrate very well at the moment).
- Pressing 'D' during boot (no change in behavior, no diagnostics displayed).
I'm not sure if I'm missing some critical VMX configuration, or perhaps High Sierra introduces further complications when run in VMware, compared to earlier editions of macOS? Or maybe an alternative EFI bootloader (Clover?) is necessary, I just don't know. I'd prefer to install macOS with as vanilla/default a configuration as possible.
If anyone else has experience getting macOS to boot in VMware, let me know how the VMX configuration can be improved, or if some kind of SMC toggling intervention is necessary to get the thing to boot better. I've already tossed so many hacks and workarounds into the mix that I'm starting to run out of ideas :smileysilly:
Also posting this to Reddit, in case those folks can help as well.
