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Hack VMWare Fusion 2 – Virtualize Tiger/Leopard

September 3rd, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

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 !

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  • GeroZ
    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.
  • giametti
    I can't get VMWare tools to install, although I can get Tiger to run through Fusion 3. Can this be done? (The CAD program I need to run won't recognize the authorization dongle without it.)
  • PTL
    any news for vmware fusion 3?
  • skr3dii
    Just follow my tutorial, it works like a charm for vmware fusion 3 as well.
  • igerware
    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
  • skr3dii
    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.
  • igerware
    Still getting the same error. I'm running Version 3.0.0 (204229) of Fusion. Does it still work for you?
  • PTL
    Not work for me with OSX 10.6...
  • skr3dii
    Fusion 3.0 uses EFI instead of BIOS by default. After creating a new VM and before booting it from the install DVD/ISO, edit the *.vmx file and remove/comment out the firmware="efi" line. VMWare will then use the hacked boot image from darwin.iso.
  • Dave
    I should add, since it's not clear in that last post (but I did mention it earlier), one of the two images I've tried on was a clean Tiger install which I performed myself from the factory DVD. Tiger works fine (but no sound), Apple TV does not unless I boot from an external drive. Who knows, it might be something as simple as setting to the correct resolution (although I've already tried 1280x720) or having working sound drivers.
  • Dave
    Since the idea of using this method to run Apple TV was brought up in the initial post and has drawn some interest from others, I'd like to pose that as a potential new project for someone (not me, unfortunately, based on my knowledge). I've tried with a couple different disk images, including an ATV-only image posted as a torrent, and in each case it's the same: Apple TV works when the image is booted from an external drive, but crashes on launch within VMWare. I have no idea why.

    I don't believe anyone in this thread has reported getting this to work, either, albeit I might have been the first to actually give it a try. Any takers? ;)
  • skr3dii
    Forgot to mention that I installed the kext for sound under Tiger Server, but should not be any difference. I will install Tiger Client again if I find the image.
  • Dave
    I'll need to try this again tomorrow, but on the first attempt it didn't work. After rebooting my Sound preference pane still doesn't show any available audio devices. Also, is the third to last command supposed to be "rm Extensions.mkext?" I didn't have an Extensions.mpkg.

    Overall, some findings after doing the macosxhints patch:

    - Make sure your Energy Settings within the VM are set so that the machine never goes to sleep. Otherwise the VM will freeze inside of VMWare after a period of inactivity.
    - With the macosxhints patch, some installer programs (such as Apple-provided OS upgrades, Software Update, and the XTools installer) don't recognize Tiger being installed and therefore will disallow certain installations. Software Update likewise won't see any new software dependent on having Tiger installed (for instance I started with 10.4.10 and Software Update never offered to install 10.4.11; when I downloaded the 10.4.11 installer from apple.com, it wouldn't let me install it).
    - Since my VMWare disk image was imaged from an external drive, I was able to get around the above by booting my Mac from the external drive, running all the upgrades, and then re-imaging back to the VMWare image using Disk Utility. Then of course I re-applied the macosxhints patch before booting back up in VMWare.
    - https works in Safari for me now. I'm not sure what changed -- all I can think of is the upgrade to 10.4.11.
    - AppleTV crashes on launch within VMWare. Booting my Mac into Tiger from the source image on the external drive, it works fine. I'm not sure what the difference would be. I tried touching ServerVersion.plist on the external drive, then rebooting again, to simulate the patch but AppleTV still works there, outside of VMWare.
  • skr3dii
    Ok I got sound working with the following kext : http://atv4mac.macgeekblog.com/AppleAC97Audio.k...

    Extract the kext to /System/Library/Extensions
    Run the following commands in Terminal :

    sudo -s
    (enter password)
    cd /System/Library/Extensions
    chmod -R 755 AppleAC97Audio.kext
    chown -R root:wheel AppleAC97Audio.kext
    cd /System/Library
    rm Extensions.mkext
    rm Extensions.kextcache
    reboot
  • skr3dii
    I successfully installed and loaded ES137x Maxxuss kext for sound support, but the sound device is still not there, guess this plugin is too old. I have another idea as well, will let you know if it works out.
  • Dave
    I got it working using the link posted earlier:

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20...

    This is with OS X 10.4.10 and the latest version of VMWare Fusion (downloaded yesterday).

    However, it has trouble loading secure (https) pages in Safari. It shows a "couldn't establish secure connection" error. This is using either Bridged or NAT network mode.

    Of course, sound doesn't work and this is important if I want to run Apple TV. Basically I want my Mac Mini to be a media center running Plex, which requies Leopard, but Plex of course doesn't allow on-screen access to the iTunes Store, which I'd like. That's the main feature from Apple TV that I need. Sound isn't crucial, but if I'm thinking of renting a movie I'd like to watch the trailer (and I'm not so sure that an iTunes rented movie would play in Plex anyway).

    For fun I might try the same macoshints hack on an Apple TV image, although I realize sound isn't going to work there either.

    Any word on the kexts for sound support?
  • MacGritsch
    all works fine (without sound).

    has one tested with the new version?
    I didnt update because i am not sure if it works afterwards (never change a running system)
  • Dave
    I'm really interested in this, but don't notice any real movement in the past three months. You were so close! Any updates?
  • Sixer
    VMWare Fusion won't boot from a dmg. Convert the dmg to CDR master using Disk Utility first.
  • MacUser
    admin, Were you able to install Tiger on VMWare fusion from your MacBook 10.4.8 restore DVD? Did you need to find the iMac Alu 24″ 10.4.10 restore media?

    If you were able to use the 10.4.8 disc, can you describe what you needed to do to get it working? Which program did you use to make the disk image?

    Thanks.