OSX-KVM

Note This README.md documents the process of creating a Virtual Hackintosh system. Note: All blobs and resources included in this repository are re-derivable (all instructions are included!). 💚 Looking for commercial support with this stuff? I am available over email for a chat for commercial support options only. Note: Project sponsors get access to the Private OSX-KVM repository, and direct support. Struggling with Content Caching stuff? We can help. Working with Proxmox and macOS: See Nick's blog for sure Here’s a more up-to-date version for Proxmox OpenCore-ISO Yes, we support offline macOS installations now - see this document 🎉 Contributing Back This project can always use your help, time and attention. I am looking for help (pull-requests!) with the following work items: Documentation around running macOS on popular cloud providers (Hetzner, GCP, AWS). See the Is This Legal? section and associated references. Document (share) how you use this project to build + test open-source projects / get your stuff done. Document how to use this project for XNU kernel debugging and development. Document the process to launch a bunch of headless macOS VMs (build farm). Document usage of munki to deploy software to such a build farm. Enable VNC + SSH support out of the box or more easily. Robustness improvements are always welcome! (Not so) crazy idea - automate the macOS installation via OpenCV. Requirements A modern Linux distribution. E.g. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 64-bit or later. QEMU >= 8.2.2 A CPU with Intel VT-x / AMD SVM support is required (grep -e vmx -e svm /proc/cpuinfo) A CPU with SSE4.1 support is required for >= macOS Sierra A CPU with AVX2 support is required for >= macOS Ventura Note: Older AMD CPU(s) are known to be problematic but modern AMD Ryzen processors work just fine (even for macOS Sonoma). Installation Preparation Install QEMU and other packages. sudo apt-get install qemu-system uml-utilities virt-manager git \ wget libguestfs-tools p7zip-full make dmg2img tesseract-ocr \ tesseract-ocr-eng genisoimage vim net-tools screen -y This step may need to be adapted for your Linux distribution. Clone this repository on your QEMU system. Files from this repository are used in the following steps. cd ~ git clone --depth 1 --recursive https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM.git cd OSX-KVM Repository updates can be pulled via the following command: git pull --rebase This repository uses rebase based workflows heavily. KVM may need the following tweak on the host machine to work. sudo modprobe kvm; echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/kvm/parameters/ignore_msrs To make this change permanent, you may use the following command. Use lscpu if you are not sure. sudo cp kvm.conf /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf # for intel boxes only sudo cp kvm_amd.conf /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf # for amd boxes only Add user to the kvm and libvirt groups (might be needed). sudo usermod -aG kvm $(whoami) sudo usermod -aG libvirt $(whoami) sudo usermod -aG input $(whoami) Note: Re-login after executing this command. Fetch macOS installer. ./fetch-macOS-v2.py You can choose your desired macOS version here. After executing this step, you should have the BaseSystem.dmg file in the current folder. ATTENTION: Let >= Big Sur setup sit at the Country Selection screen, and other similar places for a while if things are being slow. The initial macOS setup wizard will eventually succeed. Sample run: $ ./fetch-macOS-v2.py 1. High Sierra (10.13) 2. Mojave (10.14) 3. Catalina (10.15) 4. Big Sur (11.7) 5. Monterey (12.6) 6. Ventura (13) 7. Sonoma (14) - RECOMMENDED 8. Sequoia (15) 9. Tahoe (26) Choose a product to download (1-9): 7 Note: Modern NVIDIA GPUs are supported on HighSierra but not on later versions of macOS. Convert the downloaded BaseSystem.dmg file into the BaseSystem.img file. dmg2img -i BaseSystem.dmg BaseSystem.img Create a virtual HDD image where macOS will be installed. If you change the name of the disk image from mac_hdd_ng.img to something else, the boot scripts will need to be updated to point to the new image name. qemu-img create -f qcow2 mac_hdd_ng.img 256G NOTE: Create this HDD image file on a fast SSD/NVMe disk for best results. Now you are ready to install macOS 🚀 Installation CLI method (primary). Just run the OpenCore-Boot.sh script to start the installation process. ./OpenCore-Boot.sh Note: This same script works for all recent macOS versions. Use the Disk Utility tool within the macOS installer to partition, and format the virtual disk attached to the macOS VM. Use APFS (the default) for modern macOS versions. Go ahead, and install macOS 🙌 (OPTIONAL) Use this macOS VM disk with libvirt (virt-manager / virsh stuff). Edit macOS-libvirt-Catalina.xml file and change the various file paths (search for CHANGEME strings in that file). The following command should do the trick usually. sed "s/CHANGEME/$USER/g" macOS-libvirt-Catalina.xml > macOS.xml virt-xml-validate macOS.xml Create a VM by running the following command. virsh --connect qemu:///system define macOS.xml If needed, grant necessary permissions to libvirt-qemu user, sudo setfacl -m u:libvirt-qemu:rx /home/$USER sudo setfacl -R -m u:libvirt-qemu:rx /home/$USER/OSX-KVM Launch virt-manager and start the macOS virtual machine. Headless macOS Use the provided boot-macOS-headless.sh script. ./boot-macOS-headless.sh Setting Expectations Right Nice job on setting up a Virtual Hackintosh system! Such a system can be used for a variety of purposes (e.g. software builds, testing, reversing work), and it may be all you need, along with some tweaks documented in this repository. However, such a system lacks graphical acceleration, a reliable sound sub-system, USB 3 functionality and other similar things. To enable these things, take a look at our notes. We would like to resume our testing and documentation work around this area. Please reach out to us if you are able to fund