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macOS Sonoma support

  • Change Penryn to Haswell-noTSX in OpenCore-Boot.sh file.

  • This worked fine even on a AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS CPU.

App Store problems

Do you see the "Your device or computer could not be verified" message when you try to login to the App Store? If yes, here are the steps to fix it.

  • Make sure that your wired ethernet connection is called "en0" (and not "en1" or something else). Use "ifconfig" command to verify this.

  • If the wired ethernet connection is not called "en0", then then go to Network in System Preferences and delete all the devices, and apply the changes. Next, go to the console and type in sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist. Finally reboot, and then use the App Store without problems.

This fix was found by Glnk2012 of https://www.tonymacx86.com/ site.

Also tweaking the smbios.plist file can help (?).

Resolution in Ventura

Update: Switching to vmware-svga device seems to have "fixed" the following problem!

...

From https://superuser.com: macOS Ventura screen resolution settings includes only 3 predefined options but choosing any of them breaks my installation (I'm getting black screen with only small portion visible).

Process to reset the resolution (using that small visible) display portion:

Log in (in a blind fashion!), open Terminal and run the following commands:

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver*

sudo reboot

Reboot the macOS Ventura VM.

Note: Running displayplacer "id:FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF mode:10" doesn't help with this resolution problem on macOS Ventura.

Change resolution in OpenCore

diff --git a/OpenCore/config.plist b/OpenCore/config.plist
index 4754e8c..489570f 100644
--- a/OpenCore/config.plist
+++ b/OpenCore/config.plist
@@ -692,7 +692,7 @@
                        <key>Resolution</key>
-                       <string>Max</string>
+                       <string>1920x1080</string>

Ensure that the OVMF resolution is set equal to resolution set in your OpenCore qcow2 file (default is 1024x768). This can be done via the OVMF menu, which you can reach with a press of the ESC button during the OVMF boot logo (before OpenCore boot screen appears). In the OVMF menu settings, set Device Manager -> OVMF Platform Configuration -> Change Preferred Resolution for Next Boot to the desired value (default is 1024x768). Commit changes and exit the OVMF menu.

Note: The macOS VM's resolution can be changed via Settings -> Displays option easily.

Note: After changing the config.plist file, please regenerate the OpenCore.qcow2 file using the instructions included in this repository.

GPU passthrough notes

These steps will need to be adapted for your particular setup. A host machine with IOMMU support is required. Consult this Arch Wiki article for general-purpose guidance and details.

I am running Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS on Intel i5-6500 + ASUS Z170-AR motherboard + AMD RX 6600 GPU (April 2024).

  • Blacklist the required kernel modules.

    $ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
... <existing stuff>

blacklist amdgpu
blacklist radeon

  • Find details of the PCIe devices to passthrough.

    $ lspci -nnk | grep AMD
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] [1002:67df] (rev ef)
01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590] [1002:aaf0]

  • Enable IOMMU support and configure VFIO.

    Append the given line to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub.

    Intel CPU Systems

    iommu=pt intel_iommu=on vfio-pci.ids=1002:67df,1002:aaf0 kvm.ignore_msrs=1 video=vesafb:off,efifb:off

    AMD CPU Systems

    iommu=pt amd_iommu=on <remaining-line-from-above...>

  • Tweak module configuration a bit according to the following output (thanks to Mathias Hueber).

    $ cat /etc/modprobe.d/vfio.conf
options vfio-pci ids=1002:67df,1002:aaf0 disable_vga=1
softdep radeon pre: vfio-pci
softdep amdgpu pre: vfio-pci
softdep nouveau pre: vfio-pci
softdep drm pre: vfio-pci

  • Update GRUB, initramfs, and then reboot.

    sudo update-grub2

sudo update-initramfs -k all -u

  • In the BIOS setup, set the Primary Display to IGFX (aka CPU graphics / onboard graphics).

    Tip: Update the BIOS!

  • Verify that the IOMMU ("VT-d" for Intel) is enabled, and vfio-pci is working as expected. Verify that the expected devices are using vfio-pci as their kernel driver.

    $ dmesg | grep -i iommu
[    0.076879] DMAR: IOMMU enabled
[    0.183732] DMAR-IR: IOAPIC id 2 under DRHD base  0xfed91000 IOMMU 1
[    0.330654] iommu: Default domain type: Passthrough (set via kernel command line)
[    0.489615] pci 0000:00:00.0: Adding to iommu group 0
[    0.489627] pci 0000:00:01.0: Adding to iommu group 1
[    0.489634] pci 0000:00:02.0: Adding to iommu group 2
[    0.489643] pci 0000:00:14.0: Adding to iommu group 3

    $ dmesg | grep vfio
[    0.526198] vfio-pci 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=io+mem:owns=io+mem
[    0.543768] vfio_pci: add [1002:67df[ffffffff:ffffffff]] class 0x000000/00000000
[    0.563765] vfio_pci: add [1002:aaf0[ffffffff:ffffffff]] class 0x000000/00000000
[    3.384597] vfio-pci 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=io+mem:owns=io+mem

    $ lspci -nkk -d 1002:67df
01:00.0 0300: 1002:67df (rev ef)
        Subsystem: 1da2:e366
        Kernel driver in use: vfio-pci
        Kernel modules: amdgpu

    $ ./scripts/list_iommu_groups.sh
IOMMU Group 0:
        00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:191f] (rev 07)
IOMMU Group 1:
        00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) [8086:1901] (rev 07)
        01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] [1002:67df] (rev ff)
        01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590] [1002:aaf0] (rev ff)

  • Fix permissions for the /dev/vfio/1 device (modify as needed):

    sudo cp vfio-kvm.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/vfio-kvm.rules

sudo udevadm control --reload
sudo udevadm trigger

  • Open /etc/security/limits.conf file and add the following lines:

    @kvm            soft    memlock         unlimited
@kvm            hard    memlock         unlimited
@libvirt        soft    memlock         unlimited
@libvirt        hard    memlock         unlimited

    Thanks to Heiko Sieger for this solution.

  • Confirm the contents of boot-passthrough.sh and run it to boot macOS with GPU passthrough.

  • To reuse the keyboard and mouse devices from the host, setup "Automatic login" in System Preferences in macOS and configure Synergy software.

Note: On Pop!_OS, use the kernelstub command to change the kernel boot arguments.

Note 2: Use AMD VBFlash to dump the AMD GPU bios, and pass on to QEMU. This is especially required if your AMD GPU is not starting up properly (resulting in "no signal" on the monitor).

Tested GPUs: Sapphire AMD RX 6600 (RECOMMENDED!), ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 DDR3 (<= Big Sur), Sapphire Radeon RX 570.

UPDATE: Project sponsors get access to the Private OSX-KVM repository, and direct support. This private repository has a playbook to automate 95% of this work in a rugged, consistent manner.

Link to a list of supported GPUs.

USB passthrough notes

These steps will need to be adapted for your particular setup.

  • Isolate the passthrough PCIe devices with vfio-pci, with the help of lspci -nnk command.

    $ lspci -nnk
...
03:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia ASM1142 USB 3.1 Host Controller [1b21:1242]

    Add 1b21:1242 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub file in the required format. See GPU passthrough notes (above) for details.

  • Update initramfs, and then reboot.

    sudo update-initramfs -k all -u

  • Use the helper scripts to isolate the USB controller.

    $ scripts/lsgroup.sh
### Group 7 ###
    00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise ...
### Group 15 ###
    06:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs Sound Core3D ...
### Group 5 ###
    00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise ...
### Group 13 ###
    03:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia ASM1142 USB 3.1 Host Controller

    scripts/vfio-group.sh 13

  • Add -device vfio-pci,host=03:00.0,bus=pcie.0 line to boot-passthrough.sh.

  • Boot the VM, and devices attached to the ASMedia USB controller should just work under macOS.

Here is a link to a list of recommended USB PCIe cards.

Synergy Notes

  • Get Synergy from https://sourceforge.net/projects/synergy-stable-builds.

    I installed "synergy-v1.8.8-stable-MacOSX-x86_64.dmg" on the macOS guest and configured it as a client.

    For automatically starting Synergy on macOS, add Synergy to "Login Items", System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Select your user account -> Login Items -> Add a login item

  • On the Linux host machine, install "synergy-v1.8.8-stable-Linux-x86_64.deb" or newer, configure ~/.synergy.conf and run synergys command.

  • The included .synergy.conf will need to be adapted according to your setup.

Virtual Sound Device

https://github.com/chris1111/VoodooHDA-OC

This kext can be used on macOS 10.12 to macOS Big Sur 11.2 to get emulated sound card working. Do NOT mix VoodooHDA with AppleALC. You may want to consider HDA passthrough or USB sound card passthrough or use HDMI audio instead.

Note: The emulated sound output can be choppy, and distorted. Use Sound Card / USB Sound Card passthrough instead.

Note: It seems that playback of Flash videos requires an audio device to be present.

USB Sound Card

This cheap(est) USB sound card works pretty well on macOS without requiring USB-controller-passthrough.

Building QEMU from source

See http://wiki.qemu-project.org/Hosts/Linux for help.

$ git clone https://github.com/qemu/qemu.git

$ cd qemu

$ mkdir build; cd build

$ ../configure --prefix=/home/$(whoami)/QEMU --enable-trace-backend=simple \
    --enable-debug --target-list=x86_64-softmmu,aarch64-softmmu --audio-drv-list=pa

$ make -j8; make install

Connect iPhone / iPad to macOS guest

iDevices can be passed through in two ways: USB or USB OTA.

USB OTA:

https://github.com/corellium/usbfluxd

https://github.com/EthanArbuckle/usbfluxd-usage

VFIO USB Passthrough:

https://github.com/Silfalion/Iphone_docker_osx_passthrough

Exposing AES-NI instructions to macOS

Add +aes argument to the -cpu option in boot-macOS.sh file.

diff --git a/boot-macOS.sh b/boot-macOS.sh
index 5948b8a..3acc123 100755
--- a/boot-macOS.sh
+++ b/boot-macOS.sh
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 # Use "-device usb-tablet" instead of "-device usb-mouse" for better mouse
 # behaviour. This requires QEMU >= 2.9.0.

-qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 3072 -cpu Penryn,kvm=off,vendor=GenuineIntel \
+qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 3072 -cpu Penryn,kvm=off,vendor=GenuineIntel,+aes \
          -machine pc-q35-2.4 \
          -smp 4,cores=2 \
          -usb -device usb-kbd -device usb-mouse \

Other host CPU features can be similarly exposed to the macOS guest.

The following command can be used on macOS to verify that AES-NI instructions are exposed,

sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

On machines with OpenSSL installed, the following two commands can be used to check AES-NI performance,

openssl speed aes-128-cbc

openssl speed -evp aes-128-cbc  # uses AES-NI

Exposing AVX and AVX2 instructions to macOS

Exposing AVX and AVX2 instructions to macOS requires support for these instructions on the host CPU.

The boot-clover.sh script already exposes AVX and AVX2 instructions to the macOS guest by default. Modify or comment out the MY_OPTIONS line in boot-clover.sh file in case you are having problems.

To enable AVX2, do the following change,

Clover boot menu -> Options -> Binaries patching -> Fake CPUID -> 0x0306C0 # for Haswell

For details, see this wiki page.

Once enabled, the following commands can be used to confirm the presence of AVX and AVX2 instructions on the macOS guest.

$ sysctl -a | grep avx
hw.optional.avx2_0: 1
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1

$ sysctl -a | grep leaf7
machdep.cpu.leaf7_features: SMEP BMI1 AVX2 BMI2
machdep.cpu.leaf7_feature_bits: 424

Enabling Hypervisor.Framework (Nested Virtualization / Docker for Mac / Android Emulator / etc)

Docker for Mac, the Android Emulator and other virtualization products require nested virtualization in the form of the Hypervisor Framework to work on macOS.

Use the sysctl kern.hv_support (output 1 is good) command to check if Hypervisor is enabled within the macOS VM.

If Hypervisor is not enabled, check that you have the required CPU features. Run the sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features command and look for the presence of VMX flag.

If the VMX flag is missing, use the following steps to enable it:

  • Make sure that kvm_intel module is loaded properly. This is documented in our main documentation.

  • Make sure the VM is booted with VMX support passed through using one of the two below strategies:

    You may add vmx,rdtscp arguments to the -cpu option in boot-macOS.sh file (easier option).

    You may add +vmx, to the front of MY_OPTIONS in the boot script while changing -cpu Penryn to -cpu Skylake-Client or any other suitable supported CPU.

    Note: Host CPU passthrough is troublesome and not generally recommended.

Note: You may need to Reset NVRAM on the next reboot, but after that you should see a 1 when you re-check sysctl kern.hv_support.

Using virtio-blk-pci with macOS

Newer macOS (namely Mojave+) have support for some virtio drivers.

This can be enabled by applying the following change to boot-macOS-NG.sh to get some performance gain.

-         -device ide-hd,bus=sata.4,drive=MacHDD \
+         -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=MacHDD \

Permission problems with libvirt / qemu

sudo setfacl -m u:libvirt-qemu:rx /home/$USER
sudo setfacl -R -m u:libvirt-qemu:rx /home/$USER/OSX-KVM

In general,

sudo setfacl -R -m u:libvirt-qemu:rx <path>  # fix virt-manager perm problems

Extract .pkg files

  • http://mackyle.github.io/xar/ is unmaintained and may fail for many .pkg files.

  • Use a modern version of 7-Zip instead.

    7z l example.pkg

7z x example.pkg

gunzip -c <something>.pkg/Payload | cpio -i

QEMU quits with gtk initialization failed

Append the display=none argument to your QEMU execution script (this has already been done for boot-passthrough.sh)

ISO/DMG (createinstallmedia generated) install medium not detected

In OpenCore's config.plist and set ScanPolicy to 0 (For more information, check the Dortania Troubleshooting Guide)

Attach physical drive to QEMU VM

Note: If using NVMe, passing the controller may be a better option then passing it as a block device.

Run ls -la /dev/disk/by-id/ to get the unique mapping for the device you want to attach to the VM (like sda, sdb, nvme0n1, while you can attach only a partition like sda1, this is not recommended)

$ ls -la /dev/disk/by-id
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 360 Jul 29 08:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 160 Jul 29 08:14 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Jul 29 08:14 ata-ST2000FFFFF-FFFFFF_FFFFFFFF -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Jul 29 08:14 ata-ST2000FFFFF-FFFFFF_FFFFFFFF-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Jul 29 08:14 ata-ST2000FFFFF-FFFFFF_FFFFFFFF-part2 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  13 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-eui.ffffffffffffffff -> ../../nvme0n1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-eui.ffffffffffffffff-part1 -> ../../nvme0n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-eui.ffffffffffffffff-part2 -> ../../nvme0n1p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  13 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_512GB_FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF -> ../../nvme0n1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_512GB_FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-part1 -> ../../nvme0n1p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Jul 29 08:14 nvme-Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_512GB_FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-part2 -> ../../nvme0n1p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Jul 29 08:14 wwn-0xffffffffffffffff -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Jul 29 08:14 wwn-0xffffffffffffffff-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Jul 29 08:14 wwn-0xffffffffffffffff-part2 -> ../../sda2

Then edit your QEMU launch script and add these lines (adapt to it your hardware), then launch the script using sudo (because you cannot write to a block device without root permissions)

-drive id=NVMeDrive,if=none,file=/dev/disk/by-id/nvme-Samsung_SSD_960_EVO_512GB_FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF,format=raw \
-device ide-hd,bus=sata.4,drive=NVMeDrive \

Run the Virtual Machine on Boot

  • Edit your QEMU launch script and set the absolute path of OSX-KVM as the value of REPO_PATH

  • Edit /etc/rc.local and add the absolute path of the script (with or without sudo depending on your needs) to the bottom of the script.

Setup SSH for internal remote access

Presuming your network interface has a statically defined internal IP (on Ubuntu).

sudo apt install openssh-server -y
sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo update-rc.d ssh defaults
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo systemctl enable ssh.socket
sudo systemctl enable ssh.service

AMD GPU Notes

USB passthrough notes

USB 3.0 flash drive

The following USB configuration works for usb passthrough of a USB 3.0 flash drive to Fedora 25 guest.

-device nec-usb-xhci,id=xhci \
-device usb-host,bus=xhci.0,vendorid=0x0781,productid=0x5590 \
-usb -device usb-mouse,bus=usb-bus.0 -device usb-kbd,bus=usb-bus.0 \
...

Moto G3 phone

The following USB configuration works for usb passthrough of a Moto G3 phone to Fedora 25 guest.

    -device usb-host,bus=usb-bus.0,vendorid=0x22b8,productid=0x002e \
    -usb -device usb-mouse,bus=usb-bus.0 -device usb-kbd,bus=usb-bus.0 \
    ...

CoolerMaster keyboard

The following USB configuration works for usb passthrough of a CoolerMaster keyboard to macOS Sierra guest!

    -device usb-host,bus=usb-bus.0,vendorid=0x2516,productid=0x0004 \
    -usb -device usb-tablet,bus=usb-bus.0 -device usb-kbd,bus=usb-bus.0 \
    ...

Virtual USB disk

The following USB configuration works for attaching a virtual USB disk to macOS Sierra guest. Use "qemu-img" to create "disk.raw" virtual disk.

    -drive if=none,id=usbstick,file=disk.raw,format=raw \
    -device usb-storage,bus=usb-bus.0,drive=usbstick \
    ...

However USB passthrough of EHCI, and XHCI (USB 3.0) devices does not work with macOS Sierra. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1509336 for confirmation. According to this bug report, USB passthrough does not work with versions >= Mac OS X El Capitan guests.

It seems that this problem can be fixed by using OVMF + Clover.

Update: OVMF + Clover doesn't help. It seems that macOS is missing the required drivers for the EHCI, and XHCI controllers that are exposed by QEMU.

Generate macOS Mojave / Catalina installation ISO

This step currently needs to be run on an existing macOS system.

cd ~/OSX-KVM/scripts

./create_dmg_catalina.sh

Tweaks for macOS

  • Disable Energy Saver in System Preferences.

  • Disable Screen Saver in System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver.

  • Turn off indexing using the following command.

    sudo mdutil -a -i off

  • Enable Remote Login (aka SSH) via System Preferences -> Sharing.

Snapshot Debugging Tips

  • Get savevm to work:

    (qemu) savevm
Error while writing VM state: No space left on device

    Ensure that you have plenty of free space in /var/tmp and /.

    To use a separate storage location for storing snapshots, use the following trick (from zimbatm):

    export TMPDIR=$PWD/tmp

'Fix' weird boot problems

cp OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd.bak OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd

'Fix' time drift problems

Run the following command periodically from root's crontab:

sntp -S pool.ntp.org

Pass through all CPU cores / threads

macOS requires a core count that is a power of 2, but some modern CPUs have odd counts - like 6 cores and 12 threads.

So how can we harness the entire CPU in the VM?

There are strategies that mix smp/sockets/cores/threads/maxcpu arguments and use odd socket counts to arrive at even core counts, and even let you specify that some of the cores are hyperthreaded.

Specifically for the case of an Intel i7 processor with 6 cores and 12 total threads, altering the boot script to contain these variables and the following modified SMP line results in a full CPU core/thread pass through:

CPU_SOCKETS="3"
CPU_CORES="2"
CPU_THREADS="2"
CPU_TOTAL="12"

The -smp line should read something like the following:

-smp "$CPU_TOTAL",cores="$CPU_CORES",sockets="$CPU_SOCKETS",threads="$CPU_THREADS",maxcpus="$CPU_TOTAL"

Troubles with iMessage

Check out this Dortania article on this topic.

Fix 'guest boots to UEFI shell' problem (stuck at startup.nsh problem)

Use a fresh copy of the OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd file.

git checkout OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd

Enable rc.local functionality on modern Ubuntu versions

Create /etc/rc.local file with the following content, if it doesn't exist:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Hello! :)"

exit 0

Make this file executable, if required:

sudo chmod +x /etc/rc.local

Create /etc/systemd/system/rc-local.service with the following content, if it doesn't exist:

[Unit]
Description=enable /etc/rc.local
ConditionPathExists=/etc/rc.local

[Service]
ExecStart=/etc/rc.local start
TimeoutSec=0
StandardOutput=tty
RemainAfterExit=yes
SysVStartPriority=99

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable rc.local systemd service:

sudo systemctl enable rc-local

These notes are borrowed from various multiple internet resources.