OSX-KVM/notes.md

App Store problems

Do you see the "Your device or computer could not be verified" message when you try to login to the App Store? If yes, here are the steps to fix it.

• Make sure that your wired ethernet connection is called "en0" (and not "en1" or something else). Use "ifconfig" command to verify this.

• If the wired ethernet connection is not called "en0", then then go to Network in System Preferences and delete all the devices, and apply the changes. Next, delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist file. Finally reboot, and then use the App Store without problems.

This fix was found by Glnk2012 of https://www.tonymacx86.com/ site.

Also tweaking the smbios.plist file using Chameleon Wizard can help with App Store problems.

Enoch Bootloader

• Download Enoch bootloader from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ (requires registration).

• Using Pacifist open the “Enoch-rev.####.pkg” file and extract the file called "boot" from Core.pkg/usr/standalone/i386/boot

• Rename boot to enoch_rev####_boot.

FakeSMC installation

This option is not recommended. Building latest QEMU from Git repository is recommended instead.

• Do the following steps as root user on the Virtual Machine (VM).

  cp -a FakeSMC.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
  cd /System/Library/Extensions/
  chmod -R 755 FakeSMC.kext
  chown -R root:wheel FakeSMC.kext
  rm -R /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches
  touch /System/Library/Extensions && kextcache -u /  # optional step
  

• Remove the -device isa-applesmc,osk=... \ line completely from boot*.sh file(s).

• If you are using the virsh boot method, then remove the following lines from your virsh XML file,

  <qemu:arg value='-device'/>
  <qemu:arg value='isa-applesmc,osk=XXX'/>
  

• Reboot the VM for changes to take effect. Use kextstat to verify that FakeSMC.kext is loaded.

• Latest FakeSMC.kext version can be downloaded from this location.

• If your updated VM is failing to boot and it doesn't have FakeSMC.kext installed, the following steps can used to inject FakeSMC.kext into the VM disk image,

  $ sudo modprobe nbd  # all steps to be executed on the QEMU/KVM host
  
  $ sudo qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 -n mac_hdd.img
  
  $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nbd0
  ...
  Device          Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
  /dev/nbd0p1        40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
  /dev/nbd0p2    409640 132948151 132538512  63.2G Apple HFS/HFS+
  /dev/nbd0p3 132948152 134217687   1269536 619.9M Apple boot
  
  $ sudo kpartx -a /dev/nbd0
  
  $ mkdir mnt
  
  $ sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/mapper/nbd0p2 mnt
  
  $ cd mnt
  
  $ ls
  Applications  bin  Chameleon.Backups  cores  dev  etc...
  
  # Install FakeSMC.kext using the above mentioned steps
  
  $ cd ..
  
  $ sudo umount mnt
  
  $ sudo kpartx -d /dev/nbd0
  
  $ sudo qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0
  

Enoch Bootloader (alternate extraction method)

• Build xar from http://mackyle.github.io/xar/ on a Linux box.

• Extract "boot" from using the following steps,

  xar -x -f Enoch-rev.2848.pkg
  
  gunzip -c Core.pkg/Payload | cpio -i
  
  cp usr/standalone/i386/boot enoch_rev2848_boot
  

Higher Resolution

If you want a larger VNC screen add the following to the bootloader config in /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist:

<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1440x900x32</string>

Make sure to pick a resolution that is supported by the SeaBIOS used by QEMU. The full list can be found in the source for SeaBIOS located here.

For example, setting the resolution to 2560x1440x32 will not work. OS X will boot with the next lowest supported resolution which is 1920x1200x32. Instead, use 2560x1600x32 and it will work.

Accelerated Graphics

Install VMsvga2 from this location. No support is provided for this unmaintained project!

• Add -vga vmware to QEMU parameters in boot-macOS.sh.

• Add the following to /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist file.

  <key>Kernel Flags</key>
  <string>vmw_options_fb=0x06</string>
  

Thanks to Zhang Tong and Kfir Ozer for finding this.

See UEFI/README.md for GPU passthrough notes.

Note: There is no working QXL driver for macOS so far.

Virtual Sound Device

No support is provided for this. You are on your own. The sound output is known to be choppy and distorted.

• Add -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-duplex to the VM configuration. boot-macOS.sh already has this change.

• To get sound on your virtual Mac, install the VoodooHDA driver from here.

Note: It seems that playback of Flash videos requires an audio device to be present.

Building QEMU from source

See http://wiki.qemu-project.org/Hosts/Linux for help.

$ git clone https://github.com/kholia/qemu.git

$ cd qemu

$ git checkout macOS

$ ./configure --prefix=/home/$(whoami)/QEMU --target-list=x86_64-softmmu --audio-drv-list=pa

$ make clean; make; make install

Connect iPhone / iPad to macOS guest

Some folks are using https://www.virtualhere.com/ to connect iPhone / iPad to the macOS guest.

Exposing AES-NI instructions to macOS

Add +aes argument to the -cpu option in boot-macOS.sh file.

diff --git a/boot-macOS.sh b/boot-macOS.sh
index 5948b8a..3acc123 100755
--- a/boot-macOS.sh
+++ b/boot-macOS.sh
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 # Use "-device usb-tablet" instead of "-device usb-mouse" for better mouse
 # behaviour. This requires QEMU >= 2.9.0.

-qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 3072 -cpu Penryn,kvm=off,vendor=GenuineIntel \
+qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 3072 -cpu Penryn,kvm=off,vendor=GenuineIntel,+aes \
          -machine pc-q35-2.4 \
          -smp 4,cores=2 \
          -usb -device usb-kbd -device usb-mouse \

Other host CPU features can be similarly exposed to the macOS guest.

The following command can be used on macOS to verify that AES-NI instructions are exposed,

sysctl -a | grep machdep.features

On machines with OpenSSL installed, the following two commands can be used to check AES-NI performance,

openssl speed aes-128-cbc

openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc  # uses AES-NI

Exposing AVX and AVX2 instructions to macOS

Exposing AVX and AVX2 instructions to macOS requires support for these instructions on the host CPU.

The boot-clover.sh script already exposes AVX and AVX2 instructions to the macOS guest by default. Modify or comment out the MY_OPTIONS line in boot-clover.sh file in case you are having problems.

To enable AVX2, do the following change,

Clover boot menu -> Options -> Binaries patching -> Fake CPUID -> 0x0306C0 # for Haswell

For details, see this wiki page.

Once enabled, the following commands can be used to confirm the presence of AVX and AVX2 instructions on the macOS guest.

$ sysctl -a | grep avx
hw.optional.avx2_0: 1
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1

$ sysctl -a | grep leaf7
machdep.cpu.leaf7_features: SMEP BMI1 AVX2 BMI2
machdep.cpu.leaf7_feature_bits: 424

Running Docker for Mac

Docker for Mac requires enabling nested virtualization on your host machine,

modprobe -r kvm_intel
modprobe kvm_intel nested=1

Also you have to add vmx,rdtscp arguments to the -cpu option in boot-macOS.sh file.

Using virtio-net-osx with macOS

Configuration options for macOS Sierra (thanks to virtio-net-osx project users),

-netdev user,id=hub0port0 \
-device virtio-net,netdev=hub0port0,id=eth0 \
-set device.eth0.vectors=0

Adapt these to your use case. These changes need to be made in the boot-* scripts. On the guest, install the included Virtio-Net-Driver-0.9.4.pkg package.

Boot Notes

Type the following after boot,

"KernelBooter_kexts"="Yes" "CsrActiveConfig"="103"

Kernel Extraction (older alternate to "pbzx" method)

• Install Pacifist on OS X.

• Mount "InstallESD.dmg" file.

• With Pacifist browse to the above volume (use the "Open Apple Installers" menu option) and then open "Essentials.pkg". Extract the folder & file (Kernels/kernel) located at /System/Library/Kernels/kernel location.

• After extracting the Kernels folder, place it in the same directory as the ISO creation script.

Post Installation

• Put "org.chameleon.Boot.plist" in /Extra folder.

• System Preferences -> Sharing -> enable Screen Sharing and Remote Login

• System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Computer sleep set to Never

• System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Display sleep set to Never

Installer Details (InstallESD.dmg)

Name: Mac OS X El Capitan
Version: 10.11.1 (15B42) InstallESD
Mac Platform: Intel

Untouched InstallESD.dmg file from the full 10.11.1 (Build 15B42) installer.
"Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg"
MD5: 3332a4e05713366343e03ee6777c3374
Release Date: October 21, 2015

jar -xf <zipfile> is pretty neat.

Move 'InstallESD.dmg' to '/Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg' location.

Move 'InstallESD.dmg' to '/Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/' location (for macOS Sierra).

Clover References

• https://clover-wiki.zetam.org/Development

• https://sourceforge.net/p/cloverefiboot/code/HEAD/log/?path=