Hack VMWare Fusion 2 – Virtualize Tiger/Leopard
The VMWare team has released some days ago the second beta for VMWare Fusion 2.0.
This new beta brings tons of new features on the table like Unity 2.0, Multiple Snapshots,
Better Video and Graphics, and last but not least support for more client OSs,
including Leopard Server !!!
Virtualizing Mac OS X Server inside Mac OS X sounds really interesting, specially for atv4mac. People running Leopard will be glad to install Mac OS X Tiger inside a VMWare to run atv4mac! But we need to do a little hack to VMWare Fusion since it only supports Mac OS X SERVER virtualization.
See more details around the hack, click the link below
The following items are required to start the hacking process:
- Retail DVD of Mac OS X Tiger (or Leopard)
- VMWare Fusion Beta 2 installed
Verify you installed VMWare Fusion Beta 2.
Then Open a Terminal window and type the following commands:
sudo bash
cd "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/isoimages"
mkdir original
mv darwin.iso tools-key.pub *.sig original
perl -n -p -e 's/ServerVersion.plist/SystemVersion.plist/g' < original/darwin.iso > darwin.iso
openssl genrsa -out tools-priv.pem 2048
openssl rsa -in tools-priv.pem -pubout -out tools-key.pub
openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < darwin.iso > darwin.iso.sig
for A in *.iso ; do openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < $A > $A.sig ; done
exit
Your VMWare Fusion is now hacked to allow installation of Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard.
I am looking for a Tiger Retail DVD, please contact me if you can help.
There are no Intel Tiger Retail DVD, doh !
Need to hack the Tiger Install DVD that came with your mac !
Share this post!
Advertise!
Earn money - Accomplish a freelance project
I'm getting a message saying “Mac OS X is not supported with software virtualization. To run Mac OS X you need a host on which VMware Fusion supports hardware virtualization.” It won't let me install either Leopard or Snow Leopard
You need to edit the *.vmx file of your virtual machine to force it to use bios instead of efi in order to load the darwin.iso. Just comment out or remove this line : firmware = “efi” from your *.vmx file.
Still getting the same error. I'm running Version 3.0.0 (204229) of Fusion. Does it still work for you?
I'm using VMware Fusion 3.0.0 and I have Tiger running in a VM now – from the bundled DVD that came with my Core2Duo MacBook.
The trick is: Grab an external hard-disk and install Tiger on that using your genuine MacBook – ie. the machine the bundled DVD is meant for. Afterward let the freshly installed Tiger perform auto update with all the latest patches. This transforms a “bundled Tiger” into one that will boot on literally any Intel Mac: The bundled DVD lacks the general hardware support, but the updates fill in real nicely.
Now boot from your HD harddisk (with, say, Snow Leopard) and create a .dmg image of that freshly installed and fully updated Tiger from that external HD. Put that one on some network share. … Don't forget to check the .dmg for restore – otherwise you won't be able to actually restore it.
Now create a VM inside VMware Fusion for SL. Insert a retail SL DVD and boot the VM from that (or from an iso image, if you have that handy).
But not, instead of installing from the SL installation DVD, launch disk utility and restore the Tiger .dmg image that you can access via regular network access onto the virtual HD inside the VM. … Shouldn't take longer than 15 minutes or so.
My DVD booted SL repeatedly becomes inresponsive after that, but gladly just after finishing the restore. Simply shut down the DVD booted VM by force, remove the DVD (or .iso) and boot from the virtual HD.
Tadah – Tiger!
… However, currently this box creates 100% CPU load. Not inside the VM, but the VMware process utilizes one CPU to the limit, or two if you let it. I'm not sure what to do against it.
I'm using VMware Fusion 3.0.0 and I have Tiger running in a VM now – from the bundled DVD that came with my Core2Duo MacBook.
The trick is: Grab an external hard-disk and install Tiger on that using your genuine MacBook – ie. the machine the bundled DVD is meant for. Afterward let the freshly installed Tiger perform auto update with all the latest patches. This transforms a “bundled Tiger” into one that will boot on literally any Intel Mac: The bundled DVD lacks the general hardware support, but the updates fill in real nicely.
Now boot from your HD harddisk (with, say, Snow Leopard) and create a .dmg image of that freshly installed and fully updated Tiger from that external HD. Put that one on some network share. … Don't forget to check the .dmg for restore – otherwise you won't be able to actually restore it.
Now create a VM inside VMware Fusion for SL. Insert a retail SL DVD and boot the VM from that (or from an iso image, if you have that handy).
But not, instead of installing from the SL installation DVD, launch disk utility and restore the Tiger .dmg image that you can access via regular network access onto the virtual HD inside the VM. … Shouldn't take longer than 15 minutes or so.
My DVD booted SL repeatedly becomes inresponsive after that, but gladly just after finishing the restore. Simply shut down the DVD booted VM by force, remove the DVD (or .iso) and boot from the virtual HD.
Tadah – Tiger!
… However, currently this box creates 100% CPU load. Not inside the VM, but the VMware process utilizes one CPU to the limit, or two if you let it. I'm not sure what to do against it.