Although there has not been any news in some time regarding the support for ESXi on the latest Apple Mac Mini 2018 and the recently released Apple Mac Pro 2019, there has definitely been work happening behind the scenes at VMware. Today, I would like to share a pretty significant update as a result of some of these efforts.
MacOS Guest
One of the biggest issue which I had observed when using a T2-based Apple system with ESXi is that it would fail to boot a MacOS Guest and just keep rebooting the VM. I am very happy to announce that this issue has been resolved and ESXi can now properly recognize the Apple System Management Controller (SMC) device which is used as part of the MacOS Guest start up process. This now means a MacOS Guest will be able to properly boot on a T2-based Apple system.
Thunderbolt 3
Another impact of a T2-based Apple system with ESXi is that storage and networking devices connected to the Thunderbolt 3 ports are not visible. I am also happy to announce that this issue has been resolved and ESXi can now see PCIe devices that are attached to the Thunderbolt 3 ports.
An ESXi Advanced Setting change is required for Thunderbolt 3 to work correctly and the following command will need to be executed after installing ESXi:
esxcli system settings kernel set -s pciExperimentalFlags -v 16
Once the setting has been applied, a system reboot will be required and your PCIe devices will show up properly. In future, this additional configuration may not be required and can be detected based on the underlying hardware.
Both of the fixes mentioned above are included in the latest ESXi 6.7 Patch 02 (ESXi670-202004002) release which is available today! Hopefully this was the news that many of you have been waiting for 😀
UPDATE (09/02/21) - Per this official blog post, VMware will no longer pursue hardware certification for the Apple 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 for ESXi.
UPDATE (02/23/21) - The Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling now enables access to the local Apple NVMe device.
UPDATE (08/27/20) - The Apple 2018 Mac Mini 8,1 is now officially supported with ESXi 6.7 Update 3 which requires the latest ESXi 6.7 Patch 03 which also incorporates automatically setting the ESXi Advanced Setting for Thunderbolt 3 access.
UPDATE (06/25/20) - The Apple 2018 Mac Mini 8,1 is now officially on the VMware HCL and is fully supported with ESXi 7.0b, which contains the fixes mentioned above. See note below on 06/23 for more information.
UPDATE (06/23/20) - ESXi 7.0b has just been released and contains fixes for both the MacOS guest boot issue support for Thunderbolt 3 devices which now enables support for the vSphere 7 release. One additional enhancement, customers no longer need to configure the ESXi Advanced Setting to enable Thunderbolt 3 support, this is now automatically configured based on detecting an Apple hardware system such as an Apple Mac Mini 2018 or Apple Mac Pro 2019. This is a patch release and you will need to go to the VMware Patch Portal site to download and apply the update.
Now, before you rush out to start deploying MacOS Guests on either the Mac Mini or Mac Pro, I do have to mention that neither the Mac Mini 2018 or the Mac Pro 2019 will be officially supported by VMware. Due to the current situation that we are all in with COVID-19, personnel access to VMware facilities like many other organizations has been severely restricted and/or prohibited. In fact, much of the early validation was done by yours truly using a Mac Mini 2018 which I had access to (Thanks Michael Roy) as Engineering did not have access to hardware during the shelter in place orders. This also means that certifications of these platforms is still on-going and until these systems are officially listed on VMware's HCL, they will not be officially supported by VMware.
Disclaimer: VMware currently does not officially support the Apple 2019 Mac Pro7,1
Here is screenshot of a MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) VM running on a Mac Mini 8,1 (2018) with NVMe storage provided over Thunderbolt 3
Here is screenshot of a MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) VM running on a Mac Pro 7,1 (2019) with NVMe storage provided over Thunderbolt 3
Additional Notes:
The local Apple NVMe SSD is still not recognized by ESXi.A USB device or local NVMe device can be used to boot and install ESXi- External storage using either Thunderbolt 3 and/or network based storage such as NFS or iSCSI should be used for VM storage
- Mac Pro and Mac Mini with 10GbE networking will still require a driver. Marvell (formally Aquantia) has also just released an official Native ESXi Driver for their AQtion based network adapter which you can find here (driver supported with both 6.7 and 7.0)
Fixes mentioned above will also be available in a future update of vSphere 7.0. vSphere 7 is now supported as of 06/23/20
Good news. I'll give it a shot on my 2013 Mac Pro already running a limping Catalina on local NVME SSD.
Haha! After reading your articles LAST NIGHT, I went ahead and installed Fusion on top of Catalina on my brand new 2018 Mac Mini. Arrrgh.
This is great news! I was looking for an solution to running virtual MacOS hosts and have used your guides in the past when running ESXI on the older 2012 Mac Mini's when was not yet working out of the box. Untill today these Mac Mini's are still up and running perfectly. We'll order some 2018 mac mini's now i think 🙂
Awesome William.
What's the deal with the Apple NVMe Support, would that be resolved soon?
I second this. Can we can any kind of hint of possible progress?
I'm interested in knowing as well, is this currently being worked on and just a matter of time or does the T2 chip make it not possible at all? Would love to upgrade my 2012 MM to a 2018, but not if it requires dealing with external storage.
Is there an ETA or rough timeline on when that ESXi 7.0 update will be made GA/released? Like 2 to 4 weeks from now?
We can’t comment on future releases
Great news! Thank you William.
SO, did anyone try to replicate it? can i run ESXi and MacOS guests on the 2019 MacPro just by using a PCIe SSD adapter? Is the internal 10GBe ethernet fully working?
Boaz,
Did you see the "Additional Notes" section regarding the 10GbE 🙂
Hope I didn't overlook an existing answer, but... ESXi doesn't let me install without a network adapter. My 2018 Mac Mini has the 10GB Ethernet that doesn't detect without additional drivers. Even after using a temporary USB ethernet adapter, I'm finding a lack of success getting the 10GB Eth drivers (from your link) installed, let alone during the ESXi installation process. Any step-by-step how-to's for this?
That's great news! Does this mean we can also use a Thunderbolt 3 to fiber adapter to mount network based storage through fiber connection(s)?
Yes, assuming the device is either supported on VMware HCL or its just recognized by ESXi if it was installed locally on the system. Remember, TB3 is just extension of the PCIe bus
Thanks for your implication William, I really appreciate your work on this.
Hi William Lam ,
until now i can't install ESXi6.7 U3 on Mac Pro 2019 via external hdd, can you please tel or give link for installation.
Can you provide a bit more information on what you mean by "can't install"?
I am a bit confused. I run a setup of 5. Mac Pros .6.1 with the sonnet enclosure and some HP MSAs Fiber as storage. I use a thunderbolt PICe Extender because I have to with a 6.1. Cant I just use my Attos Celerity PCIe card DIRECTLY in the 7.1 ?
macmini 2018,install esxi 7.0
disable security and set boot other disk
upload macjava 10.15 iso to datastore
when install guest os,the vm reboot again and loop
Did you read the blog post? ESXi 7.0 does not currently work, the update mention was for ESXi 6.7p02
Hi William,
Thanks for your blog.
VMware Compatibility Guide says Macmini7,1 can officially run on 6.7 U2. Is it safe to install 6.7 U3? Or I need to stick to 6.7 U2 as per HCL?
does the Mac Pro with ESXI recognise pcie cards ? on the 6.1 we had to use a pcie extender for a fibre channel card, here I just could pop it in right ?
will this command also allow thunderbolt 1 or 2 storage device usage on MacPro 6,1?
esxcli system settings kernel set -s pciExperimentalFlags -v 16
I'm running ESXi 7, but understand this might only work in 6.7 for now.
The advanced setting is *only* applicable for T2-based Mac, so this does not apply to previous generations of Mac, TB should just work which many customers have been doing for years. In ESXi 7.0b which was recently released, this advanced setting has been incorporated, so when installed on T2-based Mac, customers no longer have to apply this setting.
Hello, At this time, only macmini 2018 is in HCL for 6.7U3 and 7.0, do you know if Mac Pro 2019 will be added soon or is there knowed issues that prevent to add it?
Thanks in advance for the reply...
There's no ETA for the Apple Mac Pro 2019 on VMware HCL. Although it has worked in limited testing, we have seen one issue which we've not been able to fully diagnose and due to the COVID-19 situation and lack of hardware access to Engineering teams, there is no ETA. I will say that several other customers have shared that they have deployed ESXi 6.7/7.0 on Mac Pro 2019 and have not had any issues thus far.
Hi William,
Do you know if the local Apple NVMe SSD will ever be supported (is the issue still being looked into) or does the T2 chip essentially prevent us from using that drive altogether?
Thanks!
I've successfully installed 7.0b on my Macmini 8,1 but I'm not having success with external storage on the TB3 ports. Under 7.0b does the TB3 port support USB devices or can it only work with straight TB3 devices? I have a m2 SSD in an USB-C enclosure that I've used on the same Macmini under Catalina, but its not recognized when I plug it in under Esxi. Or could it be the SSD itself is not supported/recognized by Esxi?
With your install did you install it on the internal SSD or an external TB3 drive? I can't get it to recognise the NVMe SSD so no point moving forward with it.
There's still no support for the internal SSD. I had to install to the thumbdrive. That's why I'm trying to get it to recognize an external drive. My use case doesn't really allow for network based storage for the VMFS.
Did you ever get your TB3 Storage to work? I just tried to put 7.03J on mine but the TB still won't recognize any of my drives
Thanks for this article! After reading it I thought now it might be the time to replace our last Xserve (sigh!) with a Macmini8,1.
I've installed ESXi 7.0.0 (Releasebuild-16324942) on a USB thumb drive, everything worked fine including the driver for the Marvell AQtion 10GbE Ethernet NIC.
Now I'd like to use a Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 SSD as datastore. I thought this thunderbolt device should now be recognised by ESXi. It's not, but it should, right? If so, what may I have missed?
I now tried the latest 6.7U3, the thunderbolt storage is not available with this version either.
However, the 'thunderbolt hba' driver for vmhba0 has loaded (so it does with 7.0):
# esxcli storage core adapter list
HBA Name Driver Link State UID Capabilities Description
-------- ------ ---------- ------------ ------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
vmhba0 nvme link-n/a pscsi.vmhba0 (0000:44:00.0) Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981
vmhba32 vmkusb link-n/a usb.vmhba32 () USB
But there is no storage, just the USB thumb drive is available:
# esxcli storage core device list
mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
Display Name: Local USB Direct-Access (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)
Tom,
Few comments:
1) Its not enough to just use latest 6.7u3, you need to carefully read the blog post as it clearly mentions update on 8/27 that you need to apply 6.7p03 to whatever version of 6.7 you've got running
2) TB3 is nothing more than PCIe extension and what this ultimately means is that just because you don't see storage device, does NOT mean TB3 isn't working but rather the device on the other end is possibly not recognized by ESXi. This is no different than if the storage/network device was plugged right into system. You need to make sure the device is on HCL, if you're using consumer grade NVMe, there's high possibility it won't work unless you're using standard Intel/Samsung/WD
Thanks for your fast reply!
I do have ESXi-6.7.0-20200804001-standard installed:
# esxcli system version get
Product: VMware ESXi
Version: 6.7.0
Build: Releasebuild-16713306
Update: 3
Patch: 116
Also thanks for the clarification about TB3 and attached storage.
To be honest, I usually don't have to deal with uncertified hardware.
So I now own an expensive SSD doorstopper and have to search for a supported TB3 device. 🙂
You will NOT find any supported TB3 storage devices, since TB3 is fairly limited in platforms its available in. You'll find TB3 networking devices which ATTO is a partner and has some devices officially certified. What you should consider is TB3 storage enclosure https://www.williamlam.com/2019/06/thunderbolt-3-enclosures-with-single-dual-quad-m-2-nvme-ssds-for-esxi.html and then what you'd actually be looking up is NVMe (storage devices) that are on HCL. From there, ESXi will immediately see the device (assuming you've got the right version of ESXi setup)
Hope that helps
Thanks for the blog, I was able to install esxi 7.0 on iMacPro 1,1 following your blog using the official aquantia drivers however I've haven't been able to setup TB3 hard drives. I've had no luck with "esxcli system settings kernel set -s pciExperimentalFlags -v 16". I'm guessing since unlike MacMini 8,1, the iMac Pro is not officially supported so the 8/27/20 update does not apply to it. Any idea if there is an alternative to enable TB3 support in unsupported devices?
For reference I'm using Samsung X5 and can boot from it too but can't see it in esxi host.
Did not see the recent applies since i hadn't refreshed this page in a few days. The above replies answer my exact question!
Finally got some local storage working with a TB3 enclosure rather than the USB-C one I was trying. Samsung 950 Pro and 970 EVO both detected and work fine. An Intel one did not and in fact the MacMini would not boot Esxi 7.0 with it plugged in.
Hey Steven, do you mind sharing which TB3 enclosure worked for you?
For sure.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N67P39W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For the record, I use the OWC Envoy Express: https://www.owcdigital.com/products/envoy-express
Works fine so far (it's in use for a few months now).
Hi William, I've replaced my Mac Pro late 2013 that was running fine but getting old with a Mac Mini late 2018. I've added an OWC 10 GB Aquantia card to it and everything runs ok except for the temperature. It runs very hot. The fan is running but at low speed. ESX does not seem to increase the speed. Is there a way to increase the speed from ESX?
Hi all, could smb tell is it possible to install ESXI 7.0 u1 to internal SSD ?
Or only external ? Also will be very thankful for the info how i can create datastore on external ssd on ESXi 7.0 ?
No, the internal Apple NVMe SSD is not recognized by ESXi 7.0 U1.
You'll need a USB 3 thumb drive to install ESXi.
Furthermore a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure for M.2 NVMe SSDs and a M.2 NVMe SSD supported by VMware for a datastore. After some trial and error (see my commets above.. 😉 I ended up with a Samsung 970 PRO, M.2 2280 SSD.
I’m using Mac Mini 8.1, i installed ESXI 7.0 u1 to external SSD, but now i need to create a datastore on it.
On ESXI 6.7 u2, after insttal VmVisor i create new partition with fb00 code and then used a command vmkfstools -C vmfs6 -S /dev/disks/ to create datastore.
But now when I’m trying to do the same but after installing ESXI 7.0 i see that external SSD have partition "LOCKER" that using all space on SSD disk after installation. And i don’t how i could change it.
Please read https://www.williamlam.com/2020/05/changing-the-default-size-of-the-esx-osdata-volume-in-esxi-7-0.html
We have 2 beefy MacPro 7,1. When we deploy the latest 7.0 update iso, we can get it deployed, the NICs show the atlantic driver, but we have them connected to a 1gbps switch, and we can't get IP traffic to flow. I read in another post that I may have to set it to 100mb or find a 10gb switch. Is this something others experienced?
We installed the latest 6.7 ISO and tried to upgrade to the latest patch, and it gets stuck. When I create a new iso with the latest patch, we get a PSOD with NOT_IMPLEMENTED bora/vmkernel/hardware/pci/bridge.c:372. I find that strange, since nobody seems to be reporting issues installing or upgrading 6.7.
Any ideas?
@artagel I'm also running 6.7 on the new MacPro 7,1 and having the same issue as you. I've tried to run various patches but am getting that same error "NOT_IMPLEMENTED bora/vmkernel/hardware/pci/bridge.c:372". I am able to do the non-critical patches fwiw. Of course it's the security patches that I really need. Build version is 16701467.
I'm glad I caught your post about your 7.0 issue as I can see I'll probably still have issues if I try to go that route instead.
@artagel did you ever find a resolution to this issue? We're experiencing the exact same things with NOT_IMPLEMENTED PSOD on the latest 6.7 and no network connectivity (even though the NICs are detected) in the latest 7.0. Thanks!
There’s a specific version you can upgrade to that still works, after that any update causes the purple screen. It you get to 16701467 at least things will work and you can launch OS X VMs. We just received our 10gb Ethernet SFPs, so we are also going to see if we can get the built in Ethernet to work for ESXi 7. That’s been our major blocker as well.
@Artgel, sorry, this is a while after your comment but been struggling with this all month. Is that version 16701467 you reference 6.7.0, 6.7.0u2, 7.0b? I can get esx to install and run, but every VM I try just boot loops so hoping this gets me past that hurdle.....Thanks
I have Mac Mini 8.1 and I am attempting to install ESXI 7.0 u1. However, when I get to the location of where to install it does not recognize the local hard drive on the mini. It only recognizes the USB device. I have read and re-read your post, but I is it because the drive is not supported?
Yes, unfortunately it's not.
Quoting William from his (this) post:
"Additional Notes
- The local Apple NVMe SSD is still not recognized by ESXi. A USB device should be used to boot and install ESXi
- External storage using either Thunderbolt 3 and/or network based storage such as NFS or iSCSI should be used for VM storage"
Thanks for the quick response. Why would we use a perfect good 2018 Mac mini with 64 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage to run ESXi through a USB device? Are we getting any value from this hardware if we are running ESXi from a USB drive?
ESXi runs in memory after it boots up, so USB is actually a very common way to install 🙂 VMs on the other hand should definitely run on more reliable storage and in case of T2 based Macs, you’ll need to use network based storage OR storage connected via TB3
I get that the installation of ESXi is common from USB, but my Mac will only allow the installation of ESXi to save to the USB device. It does not recognize the SSD drive on the Mac as a source for the installation. So, in this case ESXi is running off the USB not the drive within the Mac. I was hoping that ESXi would install on the hardware of the Mac mini and we would attach to network based storage for the VMs. How can it run from memory if it installs to the USB? Appreciate the assistance in helping me understand.
Not sure I follow, but it sounds like you're new to ESXi. You may want to read up on some of the documentation on our official site or take some Hands-on-Lab, so you're familiar with some of the concepts.
As I've already stated and outlined in the article, ESXi can not see or use the local Apple SSD due to T2 chip. If you wish to run ESXi, you will need to install that onto a USB device, this can be the same device that contains the ESXi installer (you can simply select it in the menu and follow the wizard). Upon reboot, make sure you boot from USB device (you can make that the default boot device by following https://www.williamlam.com/2013/01/configure-apple-mac-mini-to-default.html) and then ESXi will be loaded into memory and start running (this is how ESXi works regardless of the underlying HW). At this point, you will have ESXi running and you can configure network storage where you will store and run your VMs.
Hi folks-
Mac Pro 2019 - about 2 weeks old. I have been trying to get ESXi Going and I am also experiencing the aquantia issues on 7.0 - Actually they get recognized but not only don't "connect" but they knock out my whole network attached to the ASUS NT66U (running tomato). It's impressively bad LOL. I have been using the ESX cli commands to check on the NICS.
I noticed:
-when listing the NICS from the command line or by viewing the management network, the Mac addresses are completely wrong (Windows, Catalina, and my router however all see the correct Mac Addresses)
-when using the esxcfg-nics -l command, I see one is "up" and "full duplex" and "connected at 1000Gbps". So it is reacting to the wire, but it is basically a denial of service attack on the network whenever it's plugged in.
-The router doesn't seem to do anything (tail -f /var/log/messages) when the wire plugs in, so it's not communicating in any normal way.
The drill :
1) Using through the ESXCustomConfigurator (ESXi-Customizer-PS.ps1) to add the Exact acquantia driver bundle linked to above by William along with the latest ESX (I have used 7.0C and D) standard.
2) Unetbootin to create the installer USB.
3) Installing to a SATA drive I added internally (I used the J2i bracket and junk 8TB drive, but I am switching to SATA ssd's shortly). Eventually I'll probably install to a USB and set up a decent VMFS storage system. For now just using the 8TB SATA for everything to make sure this all works.
I have tried the 6.7 builds but all seem to PSOD once we get to the yellow screen.
So I think something is seriously up with the aquantia drivers- at least on ESX 7. Again, for whatever reason maybe the way I'm building things, the 6.7 only PSODS.
I am thinking of trying that thunderbolt to ethernet connector (Looks like William already figured that one out!) just to see if I can get further, but no need to waste a thunderbolt slot when I have two really fast ethernet adaptors available. Hope someone is on the aquantia issue.
Hi Greg,
Sorry to hear you're having issues with the AQC driver. Since the Mac Pro isn't officially certified, there's not too much we can do on our end and it seems like its related to the driver itself and use of ESXi 7.x. It would be best to raise an issue with Marvell (who acquired Aquantia) to better understand your setup, its possible maybe there's some firmware updates that's needed on Mac Pro, but they should be able to help you out
Thanks very much for the reply-
Just to confirm: I was able to install the same driver into the ESXi 6.7 build and they did work pretty well.
Note: The mac address is still wrong inside ESX for the physical NICs, but somehow in operation it stays consistant and layer 2 is working just fine. Management network up and running. I wonder if this is still the linux-kernel based driver? If so it would explain the behavior in 7.0.
Since Marvell is not really advertising the ESXi drivers on their site (A quick check doesn't list esx as a supported OS), it may be up to you guys to make sure it's not listed for 7.x if it's not a native driver. I'm not sure how to tell by looking at the bundle but guessing you may be able to.
For my next trick, I am hoping to get it running from fusion directly off the partition. That way I can keep it running if I have the mac OS (or Windows with workstation) booted. I know fusion has a tool in the package directories to do so. The options for running esx virtualized only virtual disks but willing to experiment. Its on its own drive so no biggie if it gets nuked right now- I'll just reinstall.
Hi William, maybe you know that. Is it possible to use a Drobo5D3 (connected via TB3 to a Macmini 2018 running esxi) as VM storage? Or what is your preferred VM storage with a Mac mini as esxi server? Synology?
Thanks so much and Best Regards,
frank
It depends on the storage devices on the other end of the TB3, if ESXi doesn’t recognize those devices, then it won’t work. You can use NFS or iSCSI which I believe these systems support if direct TB3 isn’t possible
Hi William, thanks a lot for your feedback! Ok I assume that there is no experience out there with a Drobo 5D3 device as TB3 storage for ESXi. In combination with the MacMini2018 it would be my favorite! @all experts here: let me know if you have this combo running properly.
All the best,
frank
Have you tried simply disabling Secure Boot on the Mac in question?
Startup the Mac holding command-R to enter "Recovery" mode, go to Utilities > Startup Security Utility, and then select "No Security", whose description states, "Does not enforce security requirements on the bootable OS".
I would tend to think that this would effectively disable the T2 chip.
Might also be good to make sure FileVault is disabled for the boot drive.
I don't see any mention that you've tried this option.
I was able to install on my Mac mini 2018, and Lexar M45 (LJDM45-64GABSLNA)usb drive. Didn't try the NVMe driver yet, because I planned to use external nvme drive.
Quirk I found was once ESXi was installed I wasn't able to see any of my usb-c/tb drives, I had turn stop the usbarbirtrator with "/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop" command and eventually "chkconfig usbarbitrator off" so that my drives wouldn't disappear when I restarted. Not sure if passthrough will work with that off but, do not have a need as of now for that.
Side Question: Has anyone gotten the shared clipboard to work with Mac guest on ESXi, either from windows or another Mac VMware client software? I tried both Mojave and Catalina guest OSs. I really thought this would work once I installed Mac guest os on Mac bare metal.
I've tried connecting to the server from VMware Workstation Pro & Player, VMware Fusion, and Vmware client. Copy and Paste to/from remote machine does not work to Mac OS.I was really looking for a better RDP solution than VNC for a Mac and these client apps generally work better but no copy and paste makes them fairly unusable for end users
Wondering if anyone is having luck with 7.0U2 on the 2019 mac pro and running MacOS VMs. ESXi starts and runs fine, but trying to vMotion MacOS VMs to the mac pro, or trying to boot a MacOS VM end up with errors about the SMC not being available:
"Failed to receive migration. The source detected that the destination failed to resume. An error occurred restoring the virtual machine state during migration. The Apple SMC device is not available. This virtual machine can run only on an Apple computer."
When booting a MacOS VM, it just panics due to the SMC not being available.
Hey Anthony,
Having the same issue here with ESXi 7.0U2 on Mac Pro 7,1 hosts in a (currently) non-EVC cluster. Oddly enough, one of the hosts in the cluster runs VMs without any problems. The other 3 exhibit the same issue you mentioned, and the guests either get stuck in a constant reboot loop or power themselves off.
ESXi was installed on all 4 hosts from the same media onto 4 matching Sandisk USB-C flash drives. Secure boot is off on all 4 hosts, as well. Trying to diff between the working Mac Pro and the non-working ones to see if I can spot any inconsistencies, but no luck so far.
Going to give that specific bugfix version of 6.7 a shot tomorrow to see if this helps. If anyone has anything else worth trying I'm happy to give it a go.
William et al, thank you for all of your efforts to champion and engineer enterprise-level virtualization on Apple hardware. This blog has been a huge help over the last few years.
How did you even get ESXI to install I tried 6.7U3 and now the latest 7 and all I can see is shutting down Firmware services right before the install screen should come..then it blanks out completely.
I am also having this issue with ESXi 7.0.3l on the 2019 Mac Pro. "The Apple SMC device is not available"
FYI - In case folks have not seen/heard the news, VMware will no longer VMware will no longer pursue hardware certification for the Apple 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 for ESXi.
Reference: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2021/09/update-apple-2019-mac-pro-71-for-esxi.html
🙁
When you're running OSX in a VM on Apple hardware, does iMessage activation work?
In case anyone is interested, yes it does!
William,
do you have any updates for Mac Mini 8,1 i7 2018, and ESXi
I downloaded latest version but cannot get visible data stores.
I got usb flash drive to boot installer, installer loaded to external SATA drive but cannot see any free space or any other drives.
I saw you mentioned 7.0b (which is a patch that HCL is approved to work but that is an older version and I was able to download the patch but not the base the patch must be applied to)
Sorry, I don't. If you have VMware Support, you may want to file a support request to see if they can help but I've not spent anymore time on Mac systems and ESXi as of late
Hi Brandon, were you able to get this to work? I'm running esx7.03u and it doesn't see the local nvme on the Mac. It also won't boot when a thunderbolt drive is connected to the device. Thanks
Thanks William for all the information you shared, very valuable!
Now I have one issue: my Mac Mini(2018) has 4 TB3 ports, I installed ESXi 7 on it, however, the 4 TB3 ports can only be used two of them, the 3rd device attached to it just cannot be used, doesn't matter which port I uses.
Do you or anyone have such issue? Please shed some light. Thanks
I've not tried more than two TB accessories before in the past and I don't have more to confirm whether this is an expected behavior. In the past, I've heard folks run into issues as TB ports may draw more power and you may want to look into TB-powered hub to see if that helps rule out issue
Hi, I guess it's not supported, but, I am running 7.0.3 but I can't get the TB storage works. It's a glyph enclosure and the message I can see is the following:
2023-08-06T17:52:12.560Z cpu7:1048637)WARNING: VMKAcpi: 2511: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG2: Unsupported notification type(0x0)
2023-08-06T17:52:20.833Z cpu7:1048637)VMKAcpi: 2492: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG1: 0x430074408da0 received ACPI event 0x0
Thanks,
I have purchased this enclosure https://www.owcdigital.com/products/envoy-express, but it's still not working, same error messages than before
Any tips please?
Thanks in advanced