VMware Cloud Community
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Is it possible to run Mac OS X guests in ESXi nested?

Is it possible to run Mac OS X guests in ESXi that is running not on bare metal (like Apple XServe), but rather as a guest in VMware Fusion that is running on a MacMini computer?

After all the physical hardware is still Apple and one can run Mac OS X guests directly in VMware Fusion.

Thanks.

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

It looks like the current version of ESX 5.1 cannot handle the System Management Controller in your Mac.  A future update may fix this issue.

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
38 Replies
weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Yes you should be able and you would still be complying with Apple EULA - 

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I am not able to. On my MacMini ESXi (running in Fusion) behaves the exact same as if it was running on a PC. It refuses to boot up Mac OS X 10.8.3.

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

On your ESXi guest, enable the shell (under Troubleshooting options).  Use Alt-F1 on the ESXi console to get to the login pompt.  Log in to the ESXi guest and issue the following command:

esxcfg-module applesmc


You should then be able to run Mac OS X guests.


Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Thanks for the tip.

Unfortunately, when I type esxcfg-module applesmc, I get an error message:-

Unable to load module /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/applesmc: Failure

Anything else I can try?

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

You may have to power off your ESXi VM and add the following options to its configuration file:

ich7m.present = TRUE
smc.present = TRUE

Then power it back on and try the esxcfg-module command.

Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I added those two lines to the configuration file and then bingo, the “applesmc” module loaded successfully!

Sadly however it is still the same. It won’t boot.

By the way, do you or do you not need to add quotation marks for TRUE and FALSE in the configuration files? I did because all the other lines had them too so I typed "TRUE" instead of just TRUE.

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Leica wrote:

I added those two lines to the configuration file and then bingo, the “applesmc” module loaded successfully!

Okay, that's one step closer.

Sadly however it is still the same. It won’t boot.

Can you post the vmware.log file for the nested Mac OS X guest?

By the way, do you or do you not need to add quotation marks for TRUE and FALSE in the configuration files? I did because all the other lines had them too so I typed "TRUE" instead of just TRUE.

If there are no special characters to the right of the equals sign, you don't need the quotes.  I usually leave the quotes off when giving people instructions, because some Windows editors turn normal quotes into "smart quotes," and smart quotes don't work.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Here is the file as requested.

By the way I added those two lines to WMware Workstation on a PC and applesmc module still loaded successfully! Since it isn't an Apple should it not have refused? Just guessing...

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Leica wrote:

Here is the file as requested.

Sorry.  This looks like the log file for the ESXi guest.  I want to see the vmware.log file for the Mac OS X guest *inside* the ESXi guest.

By the way I added those two lines to WMware Workstation on a PC and applesmc module still loaded successfully! Since it isn't an Apple should it not have refused? Just guessing...

My understanding is that the module will load, but it will eventually fail when you try to access the SMC.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Oops. Here is the correct file...

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Hmmm...That looks good to me.  Can you post the /var/log/vmkernel.log file from inside the ESXi VM?

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Here you go...

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

This looks similar to .

Let me see if I can bring in some help.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

By the way, my Mac is the MacBook Pro Retina 15 Inch, latest model. It uses the same CPU as the MacMini.

Your help is extremely appreciated! Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

It looks like the current version of ESX 5.1 cannot handle the System Management Controller in your Mac.  A future update may fix this issue.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

So it is a limitation then. Oh well Smiley Sad Does this limitation apply only to a guest ESXi (nested)? Or does it also apply to a natively running ESXi?

Thank you for all your help.

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

I would expect ESXi running natively on this hardware to have the same problem.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Yes I think so too. I was briefly browsing through this thread:-

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/423099?start=270&tstart=0

It seems that there is a "SMC" problem running it natively on the latest MacMini also. And to run Mac OS X guests one has to resort to the "unlocker" utility, which by the way, does indeed do the trick, but with the nasty side effect of not working with vCenter Server, so it is useless.

Reply
0 Kudos
Leica
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

@jmattson,

Success!

After reading this thread:-

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/423099

In its entirety - all 19 pages of it, I found the solution!

On page 9:-

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/423099?start=120&tstart=0

It appears that dariusd provided a fixed Apple SMC to another user who kindly posted a modified ISO of ESXi with the fix. Well I downloaded this ISO and it worked! Well not initially - I had to tweak it a bit.

By default the applesmc module was not loaded. So I typed the command esxcfg-module applesmc as you instructed. Then the module loaded successfully.

Interestingly, with the normal ESXi ISO I got the error messages (as mention by me above in the thread) when trying to load the applesmc module and I had to modify the vmx file as per your instructions. However with this modified ISO the applesmc module loads successfully without any problems.

One problem is that on boot up, ESXi does not load the applesmc module by default and I have to manually type the command each time. Why is that? Any way to fix it?

Thanks again.

Reply
0 Kudos