Presenting compatible CPU architecture to Mac OS X guest VMs

[jlg89]

Running a Mac OS X guest VM on a Mac OS X host may result in the guest VM crashing at startup, due to incompatibilities between the particular kernel etc. in the VM and the actual guest hardware. The forums contain a workaround that appears to be valid, at least in some cases:

​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=61825#p289540

Is there a way to add a configuration option to Mac OS X VMs that allows the user to specify the "vintage" of Apple hardware that should be presented to the guest OS? Or perhaps incorporate a known-good "cpuidset" value into each type of base Mac OS X VM configuration?

[jozie]

Fully agree a list of known-good cpuidset would be very handy.

Just would like to point out that the problems discussed for 4.3.8 still seem to be present in 4.3.12, see https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12802

Hang during boot seems to be not only a frequently discussed problem with older hardware and OS versions, but also with recent Haswell cpu and Mavericks 10.9.2

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.

[Michael Thayer]

Set CC to: socratis

[Socratis]

Limit case, but still, this needs to be looked at, especially now that the "--cpu-profile" is more mature.

Related discussion in the forums: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=86741