MacOS Vm on Proxmox server

I agree it sucks that (too much) people use closed source secure-advertised-only (trust me bro) OSs, but in the end, we build software for users, so we have to make it work on the platform they use, and it means also testing properly on the platform they use.

Proxmox

Proxmox is a Virtual Machine manager implementation, a minimal Debian OS with an admin interface to spawn VMs. This post will show you a step-by-step flow to build a MacOS VM for Proxmox.

What you need

  • A KVM-OpenCore *.iso image, you can get the latest here
  • A MacOS *.iso image
  • An already running proxmox server, I'll assume here that you are familliar managing a Proxmox server.

You should first upload OpenCore and you MacOS image to your Proxmox Server.

Install KVM-OpenCore

KVM OpenCore is a virtualized implementation of the OpenCore bootloader, typically used to run macOS on Linux-based systems via KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). This setup enables users to create a macOS virtual machine with near-native performance, leveraging OpenCore to manage the macOS boot process in a virtual environment.

General Tab

general

  • Choose a name for the VM.

  • The VM ID is not very important here, it should just be unique.

OS Tab

OS

  • Select the Opencore image you have previously installed
  • Set Guest OS type to Other

System Tab

system

  • Graphic card: VMware compatible
  • Machine: q35
  • BIOS: OVMF (UEFI)
  • Check Add EFI disk
  • Select a storage
  • Uncheck Pre-Enroll keys
  • SCSI: VirtIO SCSI

Disks Tab

disks

  • Bus/Device: VirtIO Block
  • Disk Size: at least 60 GiB
  • Cache: Write back (unsafe)

CPU Tab

cpu

  • Cores: at least 4
  • Type: host

Memory Tab

memory

Memory: at least 8192 GiB

Network tab

network

Model: VMware vmxnet3

Then create the VM

Setup MacOS *.iso in drive

add_drive

Select the created Vm => Hardware => Add => CD/DVD Drive

add_drive

  • Storage: ISOs
  • ISO image: your macos *.iso image uploaded previously

Configure VM via host terminal

add_drive

Click on your server name => Shell

then open the config file:

nano /etc/pve/qemu-server/1400.conf

here you should replace 1400 by your VM Id.

then add this line on top of *.conf file:

args: -device isa-applesmc,osk="ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc" -smbios type=2 -device qemu-xhci -device usb-kbd -device usb-tablet -global nec-usb-xhci.msi=off -global ICH9-LPC.acpi-pci-hotplug-with-bridge-support=off -cpu host,vendor=GenuineIntel,+invtsc,+hypervisor,kvm=on,vmware-cpuid-freq=on

config_vm

on lines starting with ide_ replace media=cdrom by cache=unsafe

Install MacOS on the VM

Now start the VM.

start

Select UEFI Shell using arrows and enter.

boot

Enter this cmmands to launch boot.efi

fs0:

System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi

disk_utility

click Disk utility and continue

disk_utility

select the VirtIO media block then Erase

disk_utility

Choose a new name for the media and click Erase

disk_utility

Click Done and close utility.

install

Now click Installl MacOS ... & Continue Then follow the install process.

install

Select the disk you have previously erased (MacOS here) and continue the insatll process.

install

Several time during install process you'll have to select macOS Installer w/ arrow & enter

Follow the notmal macOS install process

Let macOS boot w/o OpenCore

Open a terminal and:

git clone https://github.com/corpnewt/MountEFI
cd MountEFI
chmod +x MountEFI.command
./MountEFI.command

if you are prompted to install git, do so and retry clone the repo.

install

you should now land there, enter B to mount the EFI, you'll be asked to enter your password.

then you should land here:

install

Download OpenCoreEFIFolder-vxx.zip from the github repo

Unzip it and copy EFI folder to the root of the EFI partition

You can now stop the VM

install

Back to Proxmox admin panel, you should detach both *.iso images from the VM

Yout VM install is now finalized!

Some screenshots and the general flow comes from this video