Esxi Unlocker 7.0.3
Aiko Bartels
Hello, regardless of whether or not the process involves a migration from 6.7 to 7.0. Can anyone confirm or deny if this works on 7.0? I'm about to install ESXi on some new hardware in 2-3 days and need to figure out which version to install. And since this is for homelab use the ability to run MacOS is pivotal for my decision.
Thanks for the work on this btw! Very much appreciated!
I am sorry. I had downloaded the WRONG files. There is actually a package what stays v3.01 (esxi-unlocker-301.tgz). Use this and it worked for me. I watched the host boot and the last line was running the script of the package. All went well. ESXi 7 can NOW be used!
Just to confirm, I have installed Catalina on multiple ESXi hosts without any issues Thank you so much for making this happen, it is literally the main reason I switched my main workflow over to virtualized guests on a server. I can do my editing from any computer anywhere no matter how crappy it is as long as I have internet and this seals the deal! Is there anywhere I can make a donation to you and the team?
I've downloaded the esxi-unlocker-301.tgz file from here ( -unlocker/releases) and all I get upon reboot is a black screen after trying to load ESXi 7.0 when it gets to the unlocker file. I then have to force power off when then tries to boot into Recovery Mode.
@Donk I realize you may not be in a position to answer this, but with the upcoming migration of macOS to ARM-based CPUs, is it fair to say that the days of virtualizing macOS in VMware are nearing an end?
Has anyone been able to run MacOS on ESXi with Ryzen CPU? I've tried a bunch of different methods (clean ISO, recovery VMDK, bootable USB, export from Workstation), just stops on Apple logo, logs show The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system. Wondering if I should give up on this or keep attempting. Thanks.
I wanted to thank @hugepants for updating this for esxi 7. I'm completely new to this so there were a few things that took some googling to figure out. But for anyone else that's looking to do this, my experience took 2 install/reboots before I could get esxi to not crash 75% through the macOS boot. I was able to just select 10.15 OSX to get it to install and I had to use the disk utility to format the drive to APFS before it got through the prompt.
VMware vSphere is a leading hardware virtualization platform that allows you to run virtual machines with various operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD, on different hosts and to migrate VMs between hosts. However, by default, macOS is not supported on VMs, that is, it cannot be installed and configured on VMware ESXi or VMware Workstation.
We will go over the installation on an ESXi VM of macOS Ventura 13.2, which is the latest version as of the time of writing. To download macOS Ventura 13.2, we use a machine with macOS Monterey 12, which is the previous version at the moment of writing. The name of our user is user1.
If this method does not increase the download speed, left-click the Downloading icon to pause your download. Then left-click the icon once more to resume the download. After resuming the download of a file, the download speed increases for a certain period of time.
In this example, hdiutil is used to create the bootable ISO image. Hdiutil is a built-in console utility available on macOS, used to work with disk images as data containers that emulate disks. The DiskImages framework is used by hdiutil to to do this.
The Apple partition layout is SPUD. The journaled macOS file system is HFS+J. This command creates the Ventura.dmg file in the /tmp/ directory. You can create a larger image than the exact size of all the files inside the installer image but not smaller.
It should also be possible to see the mounted disk in Disk Utility now.
- Create the bootable installation media from the new mount point:/Applications/Install\ macOS\ Ventura.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Ventura --nointeraction
Go to Finder > Applications. Right-click the Install macOS Ventura and click Move to Trash in the context menu.Preparing an ESXi HostNow that your bootable ISO image with the macOS installer is ready, you should prepare your ESXi host for the installation of macOS as a guest OS on VMware VMs. You need to enable SSH access, download the unlocker patch, copy the patch to the file system of the ESXi server, and patch the ESXi server.
Alternatively, you can enable SSH directly on the ESXi server using yellow-gray Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) by going to System Customization > Troubleshooting options > Enable SSH. This method enables SSH access permanently until you manually disable it.
The patch is needed to unlock Mac OS X in the list of available operating systems in the VM options during the creation of a VM. Virtual machines with Mac OS X are not supported by default. The patch unlocks the Mac OS X operating system family in the new VM options on ESXi, and allows you to get VMware Tools for macOS.
Wait until the selected files are uploaded. You can view the progress in the Recent Tasks pane of VMware Host Client.Copying files using WinSCPYou can use WinSCP (on Windows machines), which supports the transfer of files over SSH by using SFTP, SCP, WebDAV, or S3 protocols (in Linux, you can use the equivalent software). WinSCP has a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) and consists of two main panels. To proceed:
In this example, the unlocker patch and the macOS Ventura installation ISO image (Ventura.iso) were created beforehand and are placed in D:\Files\ for convenience (on a local computer). The Unlocker patch in a zip archive and Ventura.iso are copied to /vmfs/volumes/datastore1 on the ESXi server. Later, you can mount the ISO image from the datastore to the virtual DVD drive of the virtual machine.
- Restart the ESXi server for the configuration to take effect. Shutdown the running VMs before rebooting the ESXi server:reboot
You can select the latest available version in the drop-down menu.Mac OS as a guest OS family and Apple Mac OS X as a guest OS version are available after applying the unlocker patch. Click Next to continue.
SMC (System Management Controller) is a subsystem in Mac computers that controls a variety of low-level functions such as power management, thermal management, and system performance. The SMC is responsible for controlling the fans, battery charging, sleep/wake functionality, and many other hardware-related features on a Mac computer. It is a crucial component that ensures the stable and reliable operation of the system.
- You are in the Recovery menu again. Click Install macOS Ventura and click Continue.
- The macOS installation wizard opens. Read the end-user license agreement carefully. If you accept the license agreement, click Agree. Click Agree once again in a dialog window to confirm and continue.
- Select the virtual disk you have prepared before as the target disk to install macOS.
- Wait until macOS is installed and a VM is rebooted. You will the progress bar. Note that it may take some time.
However, you may need to reinstall macOS on your VM from the very beginning (format a virtual disk partition or recreate a virtual disk for this macOS VM). Sometimes, downgrading the virtual hardware version in a .vmx VM configuration file can help.Installing VMware ToolsInstall VMware Tools for macOS running on a VMware VM to improve the performance and user experience. When you apply the unlocker patch for VMware Workstation, a darwin.iso image with VMware Tools for macOS is copied to a VMware Workstation directory (manually or automatically, depending on the unlocker version).
Darwin is the core operating system of macOS, which is a proprietary operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. Darwin is the open-source Unix-like operating system, which forms the basis of macOS. It provides the core features of a modern operating system, including process management, virtual memory, security, network stack, and file system.
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