17 ms·

Running OS X Mavericks under QEMU with KVM

196 points by kvmosx 12y ago

rryan 12y ago
I did this recently and was able to start directly with Mavericks with no trouble. This is also a useful article that I read in addition to Gabriel's work to get this working: http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-kvm/ http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-... It's great that we can finally virtualize OS X with no hacks to the guest.
raverbashing 12y ago
Pro-tip: don't bother upgrading to Mavericks, Mountain Lion is better and lighter (even with the memory compression thing), don't upgrade unless you really need to use something specific in Mavericks
- segmondy 12y ago
  tell that to everyone who wants to play with swift.
- IBM 12y ago
  Are you kidding? The extra battery life alone is worth it.
  - yebyen 12y ago
    In a virtual machine?
    - lloeki 12y ago
      Timer coalescing may help reduce host/VM context switches, which may ease virtualisation. Also, even desktops and servers consume watts, which ultimately get converted into heat and bills.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
rjzzleep 12y ago
given that a lot of the work presented here was not "preliminary work that was adapted", but actually entirely made by him and copy and pasted by you, I think you could at least do him the courtesy of linking his site[1] and his work somewhere in the first sentence instead of a side note in the closing statement. Adapting his work in my opinion is not copy and pasting his work and adding a line or two in the middle. Making a simple enough script that runs the whole thing from start to finish for example would be a nice adaptation that I am sure he and many other people would appreciate. Maybe the choice of your wording and the structure of your post is a bit unfortunate. If so, consider editing it. http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/%7Esomlo/OSXKVM/ http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/%7Esomlo/OSXKVM/ edit: sorry, if i came across harsh, in the tiny little world in my head the one thing engineers care about/enjoy(but don't expect) after an accomplishment is praise and credit.
- kvmosx 12y ago
  I was aware of this when posting. I am very thankful for that information and everyone who contributed to KVM, KVM-KMOD and QEMU repositories. I have moved the credit to the top of article. This was more as a reference and a quick guide (also because I couldn't achieve Mavericks via his research and therefore I have added it here). Thanks anyway.
  - clinton_sf 12y ago
    What graphics card does Mac OS X think it's using when running in QEMU/KVM as you describe? Are you able to get different (more than 1200x800) resolutions? One of the major shortcomings of most of the "Mac OS X in a guest" efforts is that 3D hardware acceleration is disabled (unimplemented) in the guest video driver, which the Quartz compositing engine assumes will always be there. This results in weird video behavior, like certain things not showing up or for FLV video to not render in a web browser. Are you able to view web video with this Mac guest?
    - BillinghamJ 12y ago
      The 3D hardware acceleration is not present. The purpose of this exercise was to have virtualized Xcode build slaves.
0x0 12y ago
I wonder what crazy low level technical thing is preventing a clean mavericks boot while an upgrade works.
Scramblejams 12y ago
Wish somebody had an up-to-date guide to installing Mavericks on Xen.
Alupis 12y ago
You do know this violates the EULA for OSX? No OSX version allows for virtualizing it as a guest VM. (just pointing it out)
- pjmlp 12y ago
  In sensible countries the EULAs don't have any legal value.
- lectrick 12y ago
  The requirement, if you actually read it, is only that the metal must be from Apple. (just pointing it out) :P
- 0x0 12y ago
  Not true. http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1000131 http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?langua...
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Actually, it is: > The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services. http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf
    - 0x0 12y ago
      In the same PDF, actually in the section 2B(iii) you are refering to: "If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, (...) you are granted a (...) license (...) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments (...)". So "No OSX version allows for virtualizing it as a guest VM" looks like an incorrect statement to me. Instead, some OSX versions DO seem to allow for virtualizing as a guest VM, under some conditions.
josteink 12y ago
I find it humerus that getting osx to run in a controlled environment, useful for testing simulation etc takes more hacking and more work than any Linux distro ever did, even in the early days. Despite this Mac people insists getting Linux to work is "hard" when it mostly works out of the box on any hardware. Amazing.
- mentat 12y ago
  "than any Linux distro ever did" - Remembering my stack of 32 floppies to install slackware and the level of understanding it took of drivers and hardware, I'm pretty sure that's not true.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    yes, circa 1996 maybe...
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      "THAN ANY LINUX DISTRO EVER DID," said josteink. Mentat already quoted it once. I thought it was pretty clear.
  - lwh 12y ago
    While I remember "oh no disk 17 isn't working" better re-download and try again tomorrow, this is the closest to that level of pain I've encountered in a long time. What's sad is despite VMs for testing being the norm, the vendor is actively causing pain for devs and admins.
    - mentat 12y ago
      For quite some time I was downloading things over bitnet ftp to email proxy since we didn't have raw IP available. Crazy times...
  - asveikau 12y ago
    The difference is, in those days you'd install Linux and maybe you don't get a working sound card or network or modem (since that was a thing). So you have to seek out replacement cards that have drivers. The worst is if your IDE controller doesn't work and it can't find the disk, but that was rare. I guess I also had a motherboard here and there that would cause panics on boot. But, the important point in all of this, is in those days it was never the case that the installation disk was actively trying to prevent you from booting. You usually got somewhere, and the stuff wasn't actively working against you, it was mostly just missing drivers. And of course, today a stock distro kernel has more drivers in it than Windows or OS X, so it is a long time ago that you're talking about.
pavlov 12y ago
I wish there was a reasonable way to run OS X on non-Apple hardware. Just today I was looking at the current Mac lineup, and there's not a single setup that works for me. Everything comes with underpowered Intel graphics, unless you pay the ridiculous price for a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro. Oh, if only I could have a Surface Pro 3 running OS X... I could live with the Intel graphics if it had Surface-style portability.
- Zr40 12y ago
  What kind of graphics capabilities do you require? My current MacBook Pro can switch between an AMD Radeon 6770M and Intel HD Graphics 3000. I've found that the Intel is fast enough, and the Radeon is hot and uses a lot of energy. I usually don't play games, I don't do graphics development, and I don't use Adobe products. So in practice, I rarely need the Radeon.
  - lectrick 12y ago
    I'm guessing that the guy you're responding to games, and yet still prefers OS X (like myself).
  - pavlov 12y ago
    I also have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, but I do graphics development and use Adobe products, so I ended up switching completely over to the Radeon. I'd like a new Mac, but I'd really prefer to have something better than the basic Intel HDwhatever integrated graphics... Based on benchmarks, the Iris seems like it could be good enough for non-Retina MacBooks. But of course Apple has chosen to use it on the Retina MBPs where it's still underpowered. Sigh.
    - tolle 12y ago
      The higher end 15.4" MacBook Pro Retinas feature both the Intel Iris and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  You could hackintosh. It's not that difficult, though that statement isn't true on some hardware configurations. Also, how is Intel underpowered? Seems perfectly adequate for me.
st3fan 12y ago
Couple of notes: * It is easier to just install a Linux 3.15 kernel. I installed the latest RC on Ubuntu 14.04 and that did the trick. * You should not have to install Mountain Lion first. I made a Mavericks ISO using the script mentioned and it installed without any issues * The Qemu that ships with Ubuntu 14.04 is new enough. No need to compile your own. Those patches are pretty old and if your distro is up to date then you most likely already have a Qemu that just works. This posting also has more info http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-kvm/ http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-...
- pritambaral 12y ago
  It would've been helpful if the guide mentioned the required KVM and Qemu versions by their version numbers. Users like me (Arch Linux, Gentoo etc.) and Ubuntu, Fedors users in the future could check and avoid installing from source.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Looking up qemu-kvm in Ubuntu 14.04 now, it's version "2.0.0~rc1+dfsg-0ubuntu3.1", which is similar to the version in my Debian Jessie/Testing machine (2.0.0+dfsg-6). Time to try this out, methinks. Edit: try this out another time - you need access to an OSX machine to do various steps of the process.
    - voltagex_ 12y ago
      Run the file utility over the DMG that you have. If it comes up as having a boot sector in it (aside from a hfsplus filesystem), you should be able to use qemu-img to convert it to something qemu or VirtualBox can use.
      - st3fan 12y ago
        Are you speaking from experience? Because that doesn't work since 10.8 I think. You need to use the script to turn the dog into an iso. It is not just a format change, it actually changes the structure of the contents.
int19h 12y ago
Does this build of chameleon still rock fakesmc? FakeSMC is unambiguously illegal - it violates Apple copyright.
coin 12y ago
Zoom on iPad sucks. The stupid Home/About navigation bar just doesn't go away.
laichzeit0 12y ago
> Virtualizing OS X is a thing that can today be done very easily, with VMware and VirtualBox fully supporting it under OS X hosts Having tried this in the past with Virtualbox there were some serious caveats. If you still can't make Seamless mode in Virtualbox work under Linux and have accelerated graphics drivers then it's not worth trying to run OS X virtualized. It's a crap experience.
fithisux 12y ago
Open source darwin has failed. That is the problem.
jameshk 12y ago
This is awesome. OS X in the cloud!

196 points by kvmosx 12y ago

rryan 12y ago

I did this recently and was able to start directly with Mavericks with no trouble. This is also a useful article that I read in addition to Gabriel's work to get this working: http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-kvm/ http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-... It's great that we can finally virtualize OS X with no hacks to the guest.

raverbashing 12y ago

Pro-tip: don't bother upgrading to Mavericks, Mountain Lion is better and lighter (even with the memory compression thing), don't upgrade unless you really need to use something specific in Mavericks

segmondy 12y ago
tell that to everyone who wants to play with swift.
IBM 12y ago
Are you kidding? The extra battery life alone is worth it.
- yebyen 12y ago
  In a virtual machine?
  - lloeki 12y ago
    Timer coalescing may help reduce host/VM context switches, which may ease virtualisation. Also, even desktops and servers consume watts, which ultimately get converted into heat and bills.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

rjzzleep 12y ago

given that a lot of the work presented here was not "preliminary work that was adapted", but actually entirely made by him and copy and pasted by you, I think you could at least do him the courtesy of linking his site[1] and his work somewhere in the first sentence instead of a side note in the closing statement. Adapting his work in my opinion is not copy and pasting his work and adding a line or two in the middle. Making a simple enough script that runs the whole thing from start to finish for example would be a nice adaptation that I am sure he and many other people would appreciate. Maybe the choice of your wording and the structure of your post is a bit unfortunate. If so, consider editing it. http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/%7Esomlo/OSXKVM/ http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/%7Esomlo/OSXKVM/ edit: sorry, if i came across harsh, in the tiny little world in my head the one thing engineers care about/enjoy(but don't expect) after an accomplishment is praise and credit.

kvmosx 12y ago
I was aware of this when posting. I am very thankful for that information and everyone who contributed to KVM, KVM-KMOD and QEMU repositories. I have moved the credit to the top of article. This was more as a reference and a quick guide (also because I couldn't achieve Mavericks via his research and therefore I have added it here). Thanks anyway.
- clinton_sf 12y ago
  What graphics card does Mac OS X think it's using when running in QEMU/KVM as you describe? Are you able to get different (more than 1200x800) resolutions? One of the major shortcomings of most of the "Mac OS X in a guest" efforts is that 3D hardware acceleration is disabled (unimplemented) in the guest video driver, which the Quartz compositing engine assumes will always be there. This results in weird video behavior, like certain things not showing up or for FLV video to not render in a web browser. Are you able to view web video with this Mac guest?
  - BillinghamJ 12y ago
    The 3D hardware acceleration is not present. The purpose of this exercise was to have virtualized Xcode build slaves.

0x0 12y ago

I wonder what crazy low level technical thing is preventing a clean mavericks boot while an upgrade works.

Scramblejams 12y ago

Wish somebody had an up-to-date guide to installing Mavericks on Xen.

Alupis 12y ago

You do know this violates the EULA for OSX? No OSX version allows for virtualizing it as a guest VM. (just pointing it out)

pjmlp 12y ago
In sensible countries the EULAs don't have any legal value.
lectrick 12y ago
The requirement, if you actually read it, is only that the metal must be from Apple. (just pointing it out) :P
0x0 12y ago
Not true. http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1000131 http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?langua...
- Alupis 12y ago
  Actually, it is: > The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services. http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf
  - 0x0 12y ago
    In the same PDF, actually in the section 2B(iii) you are refering to: "If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, (...) you are granted a (...) license (...) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments (...)". So "No OSX version allows for virtualizing it as a guest VM" looks like an incorrect statement to me. Instead, some OSX versions DO seem to allow for virtualizing as a guest VM, under some conditions.

josteink 12y ago

I find it humerus that getting osx to run in a controlled environment, useful for testing simulation etc takes more hacking and more work than any Linux distro ever did, even in the early days. Despite this Mac people insists getting Linux to work is "hard" when it mostly works out of the box on any hardware. Amazing.

mentat 12y ago
"than any Linux distro ever did" - Remembering my stack of 32 floppies to install slackware and the level of understanding it took of drivers and hardware, I'm pretty sure that's not true.
- Alupis 12y ago
  yes, circa 1996 maybe...
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    "THAN ANY LINUX DISTRO EVER DID," said josteink. Mentat already quoted it once. I thought it was pretty clear.
- lwh 12y ago
  While I remember "oh no disk 17 isn't working" better re-download and try again tomorrow, this is the closest to that level of pain I've encountered in a long time. What's sad is despite VMs for testing being the norm, the vendor is actively causing pain for devs and admins.
  - mentat 12y ago
    For quite some time I was downloading things over bitnet ftp to email proxy since we didn't have raw IP available. Crazy times...
- asveikau 12y ago
  The difference is, in those days you'd install Linux and maybe you don't get a working sound card or network or modem (since that was a thing). So you have to seek out replacement cards that have drivers. The worst is if your IDE controller doesn't work and it can't find the disk, but that was rare. I guess I also had a motherboard here and there that would cause panics on boot. But, the important point in all of this, is in those days it was never the case that the installation disk was actively trying to prevent you from booting. You usually got somewhere, and the stuff wasn't actively working against you, it was mostly just missing drivers. And of course, today a stock distro kernel has more drivers in it than Windows or OS X, so it is a long time ago that you're talking about.

pavlov 12y ago

I wish there was a reasonable way to run OS X on non-Apple hardware. Just today I was looking at the current Mac lineup, and there's not a single setup that works for me. Everything comes with underpowered Intel graphics, unless you pay the ridiculous price for a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro. Oh, if only I could have a Surface Pro 3 running OS X... I could live with the Intel graphics if it had Surface-style portability.

Zr40 12y ago
What kind of graphics capabilities do you require? My current MacBook Pro can switch between an AMD Radeon 6770M and Intel HD Graphics 3000. I've found that the Intel is fast enough, and the Radeon is hot and uses a lot of energy. I usually don't play games, I don't do graphics development, and I don't use Adobe products. So in practice, I rarely need the Radeon.
- lectrick 12y ago
  I'm guessing that the guy you're responding to games, and yet still prefers OS X (like myself).
- pavlov 12y ago
  I also have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, but I do graphics development and use Adobe products, so I ended up switching completely over to the Radeon. I'd like a new Mac, but I'd really prefer to have something better than the basic Intel HDwhatever integrated graphics... Based on benchmarks, the Iris seems like it could be good enough for non-Retina MacBooks. But of course Apple has chosen to use it on the Retina MBPs where it's still underpowered. Sigh.
  - tolle 12y ago
    The higher end 15.4" MacBook Pro Retinas feature both the Intel Iris and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
You could hackintosh. It's not that difficult, though that statement isn't true on some hardware configurations. Also, how is Intel underpowered? Seems perfectly adequate for me.

st3fan 12y ago

Couple of notes: * It is easier to just install a Linux 3.15 kernel. I installed the latest RC on Ubuntu 14.04 and that did the trick. * You should not have to install Mountain Lion first. I made a Mavericks ISO using the script mentioned and it installed without any issues * The Qemu that ships with Ubuntu 14.04 is new enough. No need to compile your own. Those patches are pretty old and if your distro is up to date then you most likely already have a Qemu that just works. This posting also has more info http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-kvm/ http://blog.ostanin.org/2014/02/11/playing-with-mac-os-x-on-...

pritambaral 12y ago
It would've been helpful if the guide mentioned the required KVM and Qemu versions by their version numbers. Users like me (Arch Linux, Gentoo etc.) and Ubuntu, Fedors users in the future could check and avoid installing from source.
- vacri 12y ago
  Looking up qemu-kvm in Ubuntu 14.04 now, it's version "2.0.0~rc1+dfsg-0ubuntu3.1", which is similar to the version in my Debian Jessie/Testing machine (2.0.0+dfsg-6). Time to try this out, methinks. Edit: try this out another time - you need access to an OSX machine to do various steps of the process.
  - voltagex_ 12y ago
    Run the file utility over the DMG that you have. If it comes up as having a boot sector in it (aside from a hfsplus filesystem), you should be able to use qemu-img to convert it to something qemu or VirtualBox can use.
    - st3fan 12y ago
      Are you speaking from experience? Because that doesn't work since 10.8 I think. You need to use the script to turn the dog into an iso. It is not just a format change, it actually changes the structure of the contents.

int19h 12y ago

Does this build of chameleon still rock fakesmc? FakeSMC is unambiguously illegal - it violates Apple copyright.

coin 12y ago

Zoom on iPad sucks. The stupid Home/About navigation bar just doesn't go away.

laichzeit0 12y ago

> Virtualizing OS X is a thing that can today be done very easily, with VMware and VirtualBox fully supporting it under OS X hosts Having tried this in the past with Virtualbox there were some serious caveats. If you still can't make Seamless mode in Virtualbox work under Linux and have accelerated graphics drivers then it's not worth trying to run OS X virtualized. It's a crap experience.

fithisux 12y ago

Open source darwin has failed. That is the problem.

jameshk 12y ago

This is awesome. OS X in the cloud!