Ventura Vmware Image

[Colby DuLin]

Soit's been a little over a year since the last macOS on ESXi install guide I've written for Big Sur and VMware ESXi 7 Update 1. Subsequently, Apple has released macOS 12 Monterey and VMware has updated ESXi to 7 Update 3.

So first things first! We gotta grab the latest ESXi version and install it prior to installing macOS 12. Go to the downloads page here and select the version of ESXi you have and want to install/update.

Once you've selected the correct install for your licensed version of vSphere, you'll simply need to install it. I've written a previous guide on how to Upgrade from an offline bundle here. This is the path I went with in order to update the current ESXi install in my lab.

Next we'll need to obtain the macOS 12 Monterey ISO. I'm sure it'll be easy to search the net and find the ISO, but ensure you get it from a valid trusted source. Otherwise make sure you validate the SHA-1, CRC and MD5 values of the image to make sure it hasn't been tampered with before installing it. ?

I'll take the safer route and create it myself using a macOS native machine. If you have access to a MacBook, iMac or Mac mini already on Monterey, you should be able to create an ISO from any one of those machines.

Once you click on Get you'll be greeted with a download prompt. Click on Download then wait for the download to complete. Download times will vary based on your network speed.

If you did everything correctly, you should now have the Install macOS Monterey.app listed in your Application Folder. This app is what we'll use to create our ISO in the next step.

Running this command will prompt for the administrator password. Once you type it in, you'll now be logged in as the root user which will be the account we'll use to execute the rest of the commands.

Don't forget to change the path /Users/erickdimalanta/Desktop/monterey.cdr to your own specific path you are working out of. Once you run the command, you should now see a monterey.cdr file in your working directory that is about 14.47 GB.

For the last step in this section, we'll need to transfer the newly created Monterey.iso to our VMware environment. You can upload it to a datastore or Content Library if you are also running a vCenter. To keep it simple, I'll showcase uploading it to a datastore.

Once the .iso is finally uploaded to the datastore, it's now time to prep our ESXi host with the ability to run macOS in a VM. The unlocker is written python that modifies the vmware-vmx file to allow macOS to boot. Without this unlocker, the machine simply doesn't work and is suck in a sad infinite boot loop.

Before we navigate to the newly extracted folder and install the patch. We'll need to set the permissions on the folder and files within. Not doing so will result in a "Permission denied" error as shown below.

Once there, we can actually use a patch validation checker to make sure the patch is installed or not. I know we haven't installed the patch yet, but let's just run that first to see the resulted output.

Anyway, continuing on with the install. Select your language of choice and click on the bottom right arrow. Next we'll need to format the newly provisioned disk so that macOS can recognize the storage to install itself onto.

Finally, the last thing to do after you've gone through the initial OS setup wizard, is to install VMware tools. You can also unmount the monterey.iso from the VM at this point since it's no longer needed.

VMware tools are essentially the drivers that helps enhance the performance of your virtual machine. It's not required by default but it does offer a lot of benefits in terms of optimizing and providing additional functionality.

This occurs because the darwin.iso doesn't exist in the directory "/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages." Which is fine as these are the iso images that shipped with this version of ESXi that I installed. According to the KB 2129825 we have a few options in resolving this. I'm going to simply go with the option to download the latest VMware tools for this specific OS.

Once the iso is uploaded there, Edit settings on the VM and select the darwin.iso to mount just like we did when we were creating the VM. When done, click Save.

You'll then be prompted to enter in the password you set when you went through the initial OS setup wizard. Once done, click on Install Software. Then click OK on the administer prompt.

You'll then likely receive a System Extension Blocked prompt during this process. Click on Open Security Preferences. At this point the Security & Privacy window will open up. Once opened, click on the lock in the bottom left and enter in your OS password, then click Unlock.

The VMware Tools window should showcase that the installation was successful. Go back to the Security & Privacy window in the background and click on Restart from there.

Once the machine has rebooted, you should now see that VMware Tools are installed for this VM. From there, you can either eject the mounted VMware Tools image from the OS or disconnect it from the CD/DVD Drive 1 option in the VM under Edit settings.

This worked for me and seems to work fine on Monterey too. May require vmware tools before you have network connectivity (I changed Monterey VM after tools install), but def. works for Ventura with this single change.

Second, if I have ESXi v8, are these instructions still just as good? I assume yes as long as I make the VM using the ESXi v7 profile, and follow your suggestions for the VM. I will know soon enough as I am currently rebooting the server after the patch.

Third, for anyone who is interested, Dr. Donk has a new Unlocker version, v4.0.6. The steps listed in your process change a bit with this new version, but if anyone is interested, you can get that here:

-unlocker/releases

Thank you so much for this guide! It worked great and I was able to get MacOS running great on ESXi.

There are many guides out there but this one is by far the best I have found. Is there anyway to get the resolution higher i only have the choice of one? Also do you have a guide to get it working with iMessage?

I know I'm asking a lot, but would it be possible to share a preinstalled ventura disk image, vmdk, img doesn't matter (it can be also a 1:1 disk clone). It seems the only option for me to try with my sandy bridge (I don't have any other more recent cpu to finish/perform/swap the installation)

In the internet connection step. When I configure the ethernet manually or by DHCP it restarts in both options

The only way to continue installing is that the computer does not connect to the internet.

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