VirtualBox supported Mac OS X(client) guest

[Flippers]

Hi, VMware and folks.

VirtualBox supported Mac OS X guests(including client) with 3.2 beta 1(currently experimental).

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30287

What do you think about it?

Thanks in advance.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Clearly a violation of Apple's license agreement. I give them 48 hours before Apple puts a stop to it.

[admin · Accepted solution]

VirtualBox supported Mac OS X guests(including client) with 3.2 beta 1(currently experimental).

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30287

What do you think about it?

We're contacting Apple about this. If for some reason it's OK to do this, we'd really like to know :smileysilly:

[rcardona2k]

I don't see anything specifically about client support. It says OS X guests, they might be leaving Server off, but there's also no explicit "client" either.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Ahh, but it does say that the host can be non-apple hardware. And that's a license violation for server too.

[rcardona2k]

Ahh, but it does say that the host can be non-apple hardware. And that's a license violation for server too.

Correct, that's with the responsibility (onus) placed on the user not the technology. Clearly an OS X Server VM built on Fusion could be migrated to other VMware products like VMware Workstation or ESX.

For example, Apple's EULA would not forbid me from running VMware Workstation in Boot Camp (running Windows or Linux) and then running my Fusion-built OS X Server image in that environment -- all on Apple hardware. Taking that VM to any non-Apple PC running Workstation violates Apple's terms.

Then also taking that same Fusion VM to an VMware ESX machine (on non-Apple hardware) and running OS X Server there would violate Apple's EULA terms.

Finally, in no case can OS X client be run virtualized in any product under any host OS and hardware without violating Apple's EULA.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Actually, you can't migrate it to other platforms - VMWare prevents that from working.

[rcardona2k]

Actually, you can't migrate it to other platforms - VMWare prevents that from working.

I have not tried it, but can you elaborate on the block? Is it not being able to set the guestOS to darwin or does the OS not boot, or ?

Maybe there are support files or extra configuration needed from an installation of Fusion to make this work?

What's wrong with OS X Server running under VMware Workstation in Boot Camp on Apple hardware? I don't see any reason that shouldn't work, support for this configuration of course is entirely a different matter.

[admin]

I have not tried it, but can you elaborate on the block? Is it not being able to set the guestOS to darwin or does the OS not boot, or ?

Guest should not boot. Our other products are (intentionally) missing some bits needed to run OS X guests.

What's wrong with OS X Server running under VMware Workstation in Boot Camp on Apple hardware?

My personal take is that it's OK. However, we don't support it - I think it's that the audience of people who would find this ability useful doesn't justify the effort we would need to make the checks to satisfy Apple.

[ChipMcK]

A reading of the Beta's users manual reveals that this thread is a bunch of hot air, baloney, etc.

Back in your corner!

[woodmeister]

Creating an application that will allow one to run OSX client or any OSX version on a

non-Apple platform is in itself not illegal. It is the person that actually installs OSX on the

device in question that is breaking the law!! OSX can and is being installed on non-Apple hardware

(Hackintoshes) but by doing so are breaking the law. VMware is "protecting" us by not

allowing OSX to be installed.

It's like the state where I live, I can by a radar speed detector in any store, but I cannot

legally use it in my state. So the same is true with VM software. It can have the ability

to run any OS, but it is the user that breaks the law when using an OS in an illegal manner.

[SvenGus]

Anyway, it would be really great if Apple eventually allowed virtualisation also of Mac OS X client!

Why they still don't explicitly permit that is a real mystery: it doesn't make any sense (especially while Microsoft permits virtualisation of its Windows client products)...

P.S.: To say the truth, from an end user point of view, the most useful OS X Client version to virtualise would maybe be Tiger, as there are many "old" apps that don't run anymore on Leopard and Snow Leopard: so, hypothetically, in such a scenario it would be useful to have the VMware Tools for OS X compatible also with Tiger.

BTW, I just discovered an interesting project that tries to improve upon the existing Tools, etc. (also with audio support):

http://vmsvga2.sourceforge.net

... even if it would certainly be much better if all this were integrated in future revisions of the OS X (Server, and maybe also Client) Tools.

[dp_fusion]

I don't know if Apple allows it, but Oracle does. Here's a screen shot of it running on my MBP:

http://thevirtualbarandgrill.com/images/vboxScreen.png

It does not run in Linux or Windows hosts on non-Apple but runs fine on the MBP.

[Flippers]

Hi, etung.

My personal take is that it's OK. However, we don't support it - I think it's that the audience of people who would find this ability useful doesn't justify the effort we would need to make the checks to satisfy Apple.

I agree to your opinion.

Even if it was installed on Boot Camp, Windows host(e.g., VMware Workstation) should not support Mac OS X(or Mac OS X Server) guest.

With best regards.

[SvenGus]

I tried it, too, with a Mac OS X 10.6 client, and indeed it worked: but it is still slooooow compared to Fusion, and with no VM Tools/Additions (resolution limited to 1024x768).

BTW, there seems to be a common problem with Oracle VM VirtualBox, VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop: Mac OS X VMs won't boot from an .iso/.cdr created with Disk Utility, while they work fine (Server only for Fusion and Desktop, at least without hacks) with the real DVDs - strange, considering that .iso/.cdr images work fine for installing with Windows/Linux guests...

[admin]

Mac OS X VMs won't boot from an .iso/.cdr created with Disk Utility, while they work fine (Server only for Fusion and Desktop, at least without hacks) with the real DVDs

Could you clarify? Disk images work fine for us here (I use them all the time with my OS X guests). What sort of errors do you get, what sort of settings did you use to create the images?

[admin]

Even if it was installed on Boot Camp, Windows host(e.g., VMware Workstation) should not support Mac OS X(or Mac OS X Server) guest.

Why? The EULA only specifies that you must be on Mac hardware, not that you have to have OS X as the host.

[ColoradoMarmot]

"Creating an application that will allow one to run OSX client or any OSX

version on a

non-Apple platform is in itself not illegal."

Yes it is. Read the DMCA.

[SvenGus]

Well, I created the OS X install DVD images in the CD/DVD master format in Disk Utility, which gives a writable image with the .cdr extension (which one can also change to .iso), and then stored them on an AirDisk (a USB drive connected to an Airport base station)...

But I must clarify that they were OS X Client images, so in order to experiment with them in Fusion I had to apply the well-known "ServerVersion.plist" hack, by creating a file with this name in /System/Library/CoreServices on the DVD images: well, after having done that and booting, for example, a 10.6 64-bit OS X Server VM from that image, two things can happen:

- with firmware = "efi" in the .vmx (the default), the DVD image boots, but eventually hangs with a barred circle sign;

- with firmware = "bios" in the .vmx (requires editing), booting hangs at a command line screen.

See the attachments for more details (at least, this happened in this scenario)...

If, OTOH, I install OS X Client by mounting its VMDK in the Finder and then installing directly on it, everything works well and the VM boots (with the ServerVersion trick) with the BIOS firmware, while it doesn't boot with EFI.

So, probably all this has more to do with the little "hack" than with the DVD images themselves: who knows...

Of course, all this is also entirely unsupported and I did those experiments only out of intellectual curiosity: but the interesting thing is that VirtualBox doesn't seem to check for OS X Server, so it is possible to install a Client version without any hacks - and, IMHO, this is a good thing, as long as you have a legally purchased version of Mac OS X and use it on your ordinary Apple hardware.

Anyway, this DVD image glitch isn't really a big problem...