Install on Mac Mini 2018? (Macmini8,1)

[luckman212]

I was wondering if anyone has ever had any luck installing ProxmoxVE on a 2018-era Mac Mini (Intel). I have a few of them with 32-64GB of RAM and 10GbE and wanted to turn them into virtualization hosts. ESXi 7 does support them but I would much rather play around with Proxmox than boring old VMware.

I searched and skimmed around but couldn't find much, just some older threads that said the installer used to hang for them on the Mini. Now that PVE7 is out with a new kernel, I wonder if anything has changed.

 

[SeanChen]

Hi luckman212, I have tried to install PVE on my Mac mini 2018. I encountered an error of fail to create a bootable volume during I installing it.

If you know anything about that please let me know.

 

[luckman212]

@SeanChen sorry but no I don't have any news on that. I needed to use the internal NVMe storage of the Mini and after my research I concluded that only VMware 6.7 (not 7.x) with a custom Fling driver will support this SSD. It's because of the proprietary nature of the T2 chip and the custom SSD, it's not something that standard Linux can support.

 

[mk_iiim]

hi all. any update on this?

 

[SeanChen]

hi all. any update on this?

Sorry, it seems there is no update for this. Recently I have tried to install an older version of PVE as the latest version is not working at all, and boot up by "rescue boot" option.

It successfully brought me into Proxmox login web interface, and I can see Mac mini8.1 with PVE 6.0 can recognize my all external devices, 5 hard drives, 2 nvmes, and an eGPU. All of these external devices were connected through thunderbolt 3 port.

However, after I completed all passthrough settings it still does not allowed me to passthrough any device to VM. All of the passthrough settings I have deployed in my normal PC and the PCI devices that I need can be passthrough perfectly.

I have googled for a reason of this and some smart guys said that is because PVE does not support to turn on VT-D or something similar which EXSI does when Mac mini startup.

I am still expecting my Mac mini 8.1 can be my all in one home server, and hope any IT masters who know how to make it work can give me a clue. Thanks in advance.

 

[mk_iiim]

Sorry, it seems there is no update for this. Recently I have tried to install an older version of PVE as the latest version is not working at all, and boot up by "rescue boot" option.

It successfully brought me into Proxmox login web interface, and I can see Mac mini8.1 with PVE 6.0 can recognize my all external devices, 5 hard drives, 2 nvmes, and an eGPU. All of these external devices were connected through thunderbolt 3 port.

However, after I completed all passthrough settings it still does not allowed me to passthrough any device to VM. All of the passthrough settings I have deployed in my normal PC and the PCI devices that I need can be passthrough perfectly.

I have googled for a reason of this and some smart guys said that is because PVE does not support to turn on VT-D or something similar which EXSI does when Mac mini startup.

I am still expecting my Mac mini 8.1 can be my all in one home server, and hope any IT masters who know how to make it work can give me a clue. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Sean. My plan, if you had been successful, was to move to Macmini 2018 from Macmini 2012 (on which I have been not been able to get passthru to work). I too would like to get one of these small form factor Macs to serve as my ideal Proxmox machine. Perhaps the reason you reference regarding PVE not turning on VT-D on the 2018 is the same for the 2012 :/

 

[barzag]

a beautiful project in the yard. compiling pve kernel with t2 patches
https://github.com/AdityaGarg8/pve-edge-kernel-t2

 

[yjaganr]

Has anyone successfully installed Proxmox 8.1 on a Mac Mini 2018?

 

[SeanChen]

Has anyone successfully installed Proxmox 8.1 on a Mac Mini 2018?

Yes, I did. PVE8.1 can be installed on Mac Mini2018 successfully now. However, there is a problem on iGPU passthrough to Windows VM. It keep showing code 43. I have tried most of solutions that provided in google. Unfortunately, none of them are working for me. It can be successfully passthrough iGPU to Ubuntu and got the display out on monitor by its HDMI port. This is all what I have got so far.

 

[mbender71]

Yes, I did. PVE8.1 can be installed on Mac Mini2018 successfully now. However, there is a problem on iGPU passthrough to Windows VM. It keep showing code 43. I have tried most of solutions that provided in google. Unfortunately, none of them are working for me. It can be successfully passthrough iGPU to Ubuntu and got the display out on monitor by its HDMI port. This is all what I have got so far.

Thanks for the info @SeanChen!

May I ask if you installed it via disabling T2 in the MacOS recovery mode? Also, have you had a chance to see if the thunderbolt ports were recognized and working properly? I don't plan on passing any devices through to VMs, so I do hope you're able to get iGPU passthrough working for your setup!

 

[deja_geek]

Thanks for the info @SeanChen!

May I ask if you installed it via disabling T2 in the MacOS recovery mode? Also, have you had a chance to see if the thunderbolt ports were recognized and working properly? I don't plan on passing any devices through to VMs, so I do hope you're able to get iGPU passthrough working for your setup!

I installed 8.1.4 last night on my 2018 mini. I disabled my T2 so I can install on and boot from the internal storage. A USB C drive (technically a USB 3 drive connected to an Apple USB 3 to USB C adapter) was detected when I plugged it into one of my Thunderbolt ports.

 

[deja_geek]

I was able to get the GPU pass through to work, though it's a bit buggy for me. The bugginess could be caused by a bad eGPU, of which I've always had some bugginess with even on MacOS. I did get a Windows 11 VM to boot once with the passthrough and was able to install the ATI/AMD drivers to the point where device manager shows the RX570.

Here is what you need to get eGPU passthrough to work.

1. Install bolt and policykit
   1. apt install bolt policykit-1
2. enable IOMMU
   1. Append 'intel_iommu=on' to (inside the " ")the 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT' in /etc/default/grub
   2. run update-grub & reboot
3. Enroll Thunderbolt eGPU
   1. Plugin and turn on your eGPU
   2. run boltctl to get a list of the thunderbolt devices
   3. run boltctl enroll UUID-HERE for every one of the devices. Substituting the UUID-HERE for the UUID of the devcies(s)
      1. Go from top to bottom. You have to enroll the parent device(s) before enrolling any of the child devices. boltctl will give a friendly error if you attempt to enroll a child device before the parent
4. Setup the PCI passthrough like any other PCI pass through. If going through the GUI, I had to select it as a `raw device`

 

[SeanChen]

I was able to get the GPU pass through to work, though it's a bit buggy for me. The bugginess could be caused by a bad eGPU, of which I've always had some bugginess with even on MacOS. I did get a Windows 11 VM to boot once with the passthrough and was able to install the ATI/AMD drivers to the point where device manager shows the RX570.

Here is what you need to get eGPU passthrough to work.

1. Install bolt and policykit
   1. apt install bolt policykit-1
2. enable IOMMU
   1. Append 'intel_iommu=on' to (inside the " ")the 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT' in /etc/default/grub
   2. run update-grub & reboot
3. Enroll Thunderbolt eGPU
   1. Plugin and turn on your eGPU
   2. run boltctl to get a list of the thunderbolt devices
   3. run boltctl enroll UUID-HEREfor every one of the devices. Substituting the UUID-HERE for the UUID of the devcies(s)
      1. Go from top to bottom. You have to enroll the parent device(s) before enrolling any of the child devices. boltctl will give a friendly error if you attempt to enroll a child device before the parent
4. Setup the PCI passthrough like any other PCI pass through. If going through the GUI, I had to select it as a `raw device`

Thanks for your info deja_geek.

Have you tried to passthrough the iGPU to get it work and output through HDMI port? I still haven't got any solution for that. It keeps showing code 43 in Windows11 VM. Thanks

 

[Axlerose]

I installed 8.1.4 last night on my 2018 mini. I disabled my T2 so I can install on and boot from the internal storage. A USB C drive (technically a USB 3 drive connected to an Apple USB 3 to USB C adapter) was detected when I plugged it into one of my Thunderbolt ports.

Can you describe all the passages?
I’ve created a usb withe the official 8.1 iso and etcher and disabled the T2 chip from the recovery mode.
But when i select the efi partition on the boot mode ( i’m pres option on startup) the mac did’t start the proxmox image but reboot

 

[barzag]

@Axlerose You must disable SIP under the Mac OS recovery menu / terminal / csrutil disable / restart with the bootable proxmox USB key.