Support Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Guest

[mackyle]

The Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) installer software license agreement (the regular install, not the server) states:

"... you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license: [...] (iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software."

Which would seem to explicitly permit running Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) non-server version as a guest under VirtualBox provided the VirtualBox host is also running Mac OS X.

Attempts to boot the 10.7 installer under VirtualBox 4.1.0 running on a Mac OS X system that is supported by Lion results in a

"This version of Mac OS X is not supported on this platform!"

message early in the boot process inside the virtual machine. See ​http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/18/make-an-os-x-lion-boot-disc/ for instructions on how to make a Mac OS X Lion install disk or else acquire one of the Mac OS X Lion installation bootable flash drives from AppleCare.

[Sharpie]

CC Me.

[Michael]

Patch to provide board info needed for Lion

[Michael]

Still testing, but the attached patch at least adds the most important stuff to make the install image boot and the installer start - both rely on the board ID.

I implemented the stuff to get the info from the host just for the darwin part, i hope other host platforms just break with this patch and i was a bit unsure about the VBOX_DMI_TABLE_SIZE. But at least it should be a good starting point :)

[Sharpie]

I can confirm that the attached patch allows a Lion VM to boot with EFI enabled and no need for a hacked bootloader. The only hiccup I have noticed so far is that on boot the VM does hang at "Waiting for DSMOS... macx_swapon SUCCESS" for half a minute or so before "DSMOS has arrived" shows up and the VM finishes booting.

Getting Lion to install is still tricky.

[Mitar]

Tricky in what sense?

[Sharpie]

Replying to mitar:

Tricky in what sense?

The Lion installer does not operate similar to other operating system installers. Since it is set up to do a diskless install by downloading an app and then running it, a bunch of weird Apple-specific stuff happens.

As far as I can tell, the installer writes out a bunch of data to the disk and then sets startup disk and NVRAM properties that are not typically of the installation processes for other versions of OS X or other operating systems. The VM then has to reboot under these special conditions in order for the installation to complete.

So, passing board ID is pretty simple and allows Lion to boot---but there is a bunch of unknown voodoo that has to occur in order for the installer to succeed.

[Mitar]

OK. But after the installation, should then everything else work OK? Specifically, ​here it is written that there are problems with shutdown and reboot. That computer is not automatically halted or rebooted. Also "About the Mac" does not work, they say.

[Sharpie]

Replying to mitar:

OK. But after the installation, should then everything else work OK? Specifically, ​here it is written that there are problems with shutdown and reboot. That computer is not automatically halted or rebooted. Also "About the Mac" does not work, they say.

Startup/shutdown worked fine for me---aside from the half minute of hangtime while "Waiting for DSMOS". Did not try "About this Mac".

[Barry]

Could you please explain how to install this patch?

Many thanks in advance.

[mackyle]

Note that VMWare Fusion version 4.0 released 2011-09-14 fully supports running Mac OS X Lion in a virtual machine.

See ​http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-fusion-091411.html for the announcement.

Also note that as of VMWare Fusion version 4.1 released 2011-11-17, VMWare fully supports virtualizing the non-server versions of Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6) as well.

See ​http://www.macworld.com/article/163755/2011/11/vmware_fusion_update_lets_users_virtualize_leopard_snow_leopard.html for details.

[Sharpie]

Replying to mackyle:

Also note that as of VMWare Fusion version 4.1 released 2011-11-17, VMWare fully supports virtualizing the non-server versions of Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6) as well.

See ​http://www.macworld.com/article/163755/2011/11/vmware_fusion_update_lets_users_virtualize_leopard_snow_leopard.html for details.

I don't see anything in that article that could be construed as "fully supported". If anything, they "look the other way" while the user does something illegal. It all comes down to trusting that having the user click on a box that says "I read the OS X SLA" will defend them in court. By contrast, VirtualBox is avoiding a lawsuit in the first place by explicitly supporting only those OS X versions for which the SLA allows virtualization.

[Technologov]

CC +1.

-Technologov

[ty_cybozu]

CC +1

[Andrew]

I see that this has not been updated in 7 months. What is the schedule for supporting OSX lion and newer guests on OSX host (Mac hardware)?

Note that the SLA does allow this usage (Lion is allowed to be installed as 2 VMs on Mac hardware).

FYI, Parallels is supporting this and I successfully installed Lion in a VM with a Mountain lion host.

[Edward]

CC +1

[alexs-guitar]

CC +1

[mattconnolly]

CC +1

[Graham Perrin]

An unexpected and pleasant surprise. For me, Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.2 (build 12C60) runs as a guest with VirtualBox 4.2.4 r81684 on a 12C60 host, MacBookPro5,2 with 8 GB memory:

• with EFI
• with fewer of the OSx86-oriented ​additions that I found necessary with some previous releases of VirtualBox.

Unless I'm missing something, none of the 4.x change logs https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-4.0 https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-4.1 https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog mention anything like this.

Lion guest-related ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=31104 remains closed, not open to discussion.

Mountain Lion guest-related ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=52139 was similarly closed, presumably by a moderator.

I assume that relevant improvements to VirtualBox are currently:

• private
• not for this public Trac
• not officially supported.

If improvements are public but elsewhere, maybe someone can find the changeset(s) or other ticket(s) – thanks.

​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=50927 refers to this ticket. I'll post something there.

[Graham Perrin]

Replying to grahamperrin:

If improvements are public but elsewhere, maybe someone can find the changeset(s) or other ticket(s) – thanks.

At least:

#11066 was fixed and closed on 2012-10-16

OSX-Guest on VirtualBox