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This is interesting from a product angle. Apple has historically not supported running macOS on VMs very well. A few years back I built the vm infrastructure f

by LASR 5y ago

This is interesting from a product angle. Apple has historically not supported running macOS on VMs very well. A few years back I built the vm infrastructure for a CI/CD platform for iOS and macOS app developers. It wasn’t easy to do this in a technically and legally well supported manner. Why is Apple supporting this use case?

thoughtsimple 5y ago
That’s not true. VMWare has worked well for years. I used on my Intel Macs for years.
- ForOldHack 5y ago
  It is true, and its well documented: "The OS X EULA does allow for OS X to be virtualized on Apple hardware as both host and guest. This is why (as you note) VMware Workstation does not support OS X virtualization, but Fusion, ESXi, and vSphere do. All versions of VMware's apps check to ensure that you are running on Apple hardware and you are running a supported OS (as not all versions of OS X allow virtualization)." I am trying to get Snow Leopard+Rosetta virtualized under Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite, as well as get Mac OS 10.8 Lion to run under Snow Leopard ( software requirements, and supporting PowerMac application, Freehand ). Its a total complete uphill battle, that apple does not want to happen: "You are completely correct that the EULAs are unclear about the question of running 3+ OS X VMs on a single OS X host. This is a legal question, and not a technical one. For that matter, so is the limitation about which versions of OS X can be virtualized (ex: 10.6 virtualization requires the Server edition, and all VMware applications block you from virtualizing the Standard edition)." So, it actually is true, and there is proof in VMWare's documentation. Shall I quote that too?
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    FWIW, Virtualization attempts to enforce this limit internally.
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    Old versions of macOS requiring the server version for use inside a VM was dumb, but there's nothing technically or legally difficult about satisfying that requirement.
    - ForOldHack 5y ago
      Dumb or not. How do I get Rosetta to run on SLS? Snow Leopard Server? under Fusion w/ Yosemite as the hypervisor? I need to run Freehand PPC.
      - mrpippy 5y ago
        It works totally fine, the hardest part is finding a (legal) copy of SLS (if you care about that). I run CodeWarrior on SLS on top of Fusion on Mojave.
  - djrogers 5y ago
    You’re saying that ‘traditionally’ Apple hasn’t supported this, but your examples are 10+ years old. Apple has been supporting virtualization of macOS for quite a while now, both with their own frameworks (hypervisor previously, now Virt framework) and 3rd party hypervisors. It’s true that “once upon a time” it wasn’t supported, but those days are long past.
    - ForOldHack 5y ago
      Traditionally Apple has supported it when it shipped hardware: Apple ][ to 68K (1991), 68k to PPC (1994), PPC to Intel(2006), and Now Intel to Mx(2020), but a few years after, its not a feature. 6 years, is 4 generations, like 100 human years. Why are the Classic and PowerPC emulators so popular? People want them. I had someone bring in a Franklin Ace Apple II clone. There are Apple ][ emulators too. Not just for nostalgia, but for applications that are no longer supported or being developed. I can run DOS on a Core II duo after 40 years. My point is Apple emulation is only profitable when selling hardware, don't even think its nifty, when its dumped like old fish.
headass 5y ago
i mean it’s been pretty easy to run macos vm’s on macos hardware for ages either with ESXi or with parallels
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I mean, screw that; it's been possible to make Mac VMs on arbitrary hardware for decades with commercial software, and QEMU has been capable of it for a number of years now. That's before we even get into Hackintosh, too. Pretty much the only issue is iCloud support, which can be spoofed with a little bit of plist editing.
  - yowlingcat 5y ago
    > Pretty much the only issue is iCloud support, which can be spoofed with a little bit of plist editing. Interesting -- any more documentation around this to take a look at?
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Sure: https://victorgamer0720yt.gitbook.io/hackintosh-imessage-fixup/ https://victorgamer0720yt.gitbook.io/hackintosh-imessage-fix... It's a bit of a hassle, but I got mine to work in less than an hour. Apparently there's now mitigation that could require you to call Apple support, but I never ran into that when I was on Mojave.
musicale 5y ago
Doesn't github actions support xcode builds for macOS and iOS? There are also several macOS cloud service providers - including Amazon/AWS, which even has M1 instances. I expect the secret that makes it easy and license-compliant is running on Apple hardware (presumably Mac mini.)
- saagarjha 5y ago
  GitHub Actions has a special agreement with Apple that allows them to not have to follow the terms of the macOS EULA.
  - musicale 5y ago
    Do you have a reference for Apple granting a special macOS license to GitHub/Microsoft? Edit: apparently it's under NDA. What about AWS, Macstadium, etc.?
    - saagarjha 5y ago
      As far as I am aware, they get no special exemptions, and offer Mac minis with 24-hour minimum renting terms.
- calypso 5y ago
  Mac stadium is a large Ci/CD provider for macOS. They rack mount iMac Pro’s and Mac minis.
- electroly 5y ago
  AWS's Mac instances aren't VMs; they are dedicated machines. I could swear I read that GitHub uses MacStadium for the Mac runners, which is also dedicated machines, but I can't find any documentation that supports that claim.
riffic 5y ago
CI/CD would be my guess, lol.
theThreeTuples 5y ago
I built something similar a couple of years back using Anka. I got the help of lawyers to help with some details but there were definitely cases where Apple’s non explicit stance (until recently) makes you stop and think. https://www.filip.dev/posts/veertu-interview/ https://www.filip.dev/posts/veertu-interview/

by LASR 5y ago

thoughtsimple 5y ago

That’s not true. VMWare has worked well for years. I used on my Intel Macs for years.

ForOldHack 5y ago
It is true, and its well documented: "The OS X EULA does allow for OS X to be virtualized on Apple hardware as both host and guest. This is why (as you note) VMware Workstation does not support OS X virtualization, but Fusion, ESXi, and vSphere do. All versions of VMware's apps check to ensure that you are running on Apple hardware and you are running a supported OS (as not all versions of OS X allow virtualization)." I am trying to get Snow Leopard+Rosetta virtualized under Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite, as well as get Mac OS 10.8 Lion to run under Snow Leopard ( software requirements, and supporting PowerMac application, Freehand ). Its a total complete uphill battle, that apple does not want to happen: "You are completely correct that the EULAs are unclear about the question of running 3+ OS X VMs on a single OS X host. This is a legal question, and not a technical one. For that matter, so is the limitation about which versions of OS X can be virtualized (ex: 10.6 virtualization requires the Server edition, and all VMware applications block you from virtualizing the Standard edition)." So, it actually is true, and there is proof in VMWare's documentation. Shall I quote that too?
- saagarjha 5y ago
  FWIW, Virtualization attempts to enforce this limit internally.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  Old versions of macOS requiring the server version for use inside a VM was dumb, but there's nothing technically or legally difficult about satisfying that requirement.
  - ForOldHack 5y ago
    Dumb or not. How do I get Rosetta to run on SLS? Snow Leopard Server? under Fusion w/ Yosemite as the hypervisor? I need to run Freehand PPC.
    - mrpippy 5y ago
      It works totally fine, the hardest part is finding a (legal) copy of SLS (if you care about that). I run CodeWarrior on SLS on top of Fusion on Mojave.
- djrogers 5y ago
  You’re saying that ‘traditionally’ Apple hasn’t supported this, but your examples are 10+ years old. Apple has been supporting virtualization of macOS for quite a while now, both with their own frameworks (hypervisor previously, now Virt framework) and 3rd party hypervisors. It’s true that “once upon a time” it wasn’t supported, but those days are long past.
  - ForOldHack 5y ago
    Traditionally Apple has supported it when it shipped hardware: Apple ][ to 68K (1991), 68k to PPC (1994), PPC to Intel(2006), and Now Intel to Mx(2020), but a few years after, its not a feature. 6 years, is 4 generations, like 100 human years. Why are the Classic and PowerPC emulators so popular? People want them. I had someone bring in a Franklin Ace Apple II clone. There are Apple ][ emulators too. Not just for nostalgia, but for applications that are no longer supported or being developed. I can run DOS on a Core II duo after 40 years. My point is Apple emulation is only profitable when selling hardware, don't even think its nifty, when its dumped like old fish.

headass 5y ago

i mean it’s been pretty easy to run macos vm’s on macos hardware for ages either with ESXi or with parallels

smoldesu 5y ago
I mean, screw that; it's been possible to make Mac VMs on arbitrary hardware for decades with commercial software, and QEMU has been capable of it for a number of years now. That's before we even get into Hackintosh, too. Pretty much the only issue is iCloud support, which can be spoofed with a little bit of plist editing.
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  > Pretty much the only issue is iCloud support, which can be spoofed with a little bit of plist editing. Interesting -- any more documentation around this to take a look at?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Sure: https://victorgamer0720yt.gitbook.io/hackintosh-imessage-fixup/ https://victorgamer0720yt.gitbook.io/hackintosh-imessage-fix... It's a bit of a hassle, but I got mine to work in less than an hour. Apparently there's now mitigation that could require you to call Apple support, but I never ran into that when I was on Mojave.

musicale 5y ago

Doesn't github actions support xcode builds for macOS and iOS? There are also several macOS cloud service providers - including Amazon/AWS, which even has M1 instances. I expect the secret that makes it easy and license-compliant is running on Apple hardware (presumably Mac mini.)

saagarjha 5y ago
GitHub Actions has a special agreement with Apple that allows them to not have to follow the terms of the macOS EULA.
- musicale 5y ago
  Do you have a reference for Apple granting a special macOS license to GitHub/Microsoft? Edit: apparently it's under NDA. What about AWS, Macstadium, etc.?
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    As far as I am aware, they get no special exemptions, and offer Mac minis with 24-hour minimum renting terms.
calypso 5y ago
Mac stadium is a large Ci/CD provider for macOS. They rack mount iMac Pro’s and Mac minis.
electroly 5y ago
AWS's Mac instances aren't VMs; they are dedicated machines. I could swear I read that GitHub uses MacStadium for the Mac runners, which is also dedicated machines, but I can't find any documentation that supports that claim.

riffic 5y ago

CI/CD would be my guess, lol.

theThreeTuples 5y ago

I built something similar a couple of years back using Anka. I got the help of lawyers to help with some details but there were definitely cases where Apple’s non explicit stance (until recently) makes you stop and think. https://www.filip.dev/posts/veertu-interview/ https://www.filip.dev/posts/veertu-interview/