OSX guest possible with proxmox?

[percb28]

Hi,

Been testing proxmox free version for a few days now. So far it's suits my needs. Still having problems with OVMF though.

Anyway on to my question. Is the enterprise version more updated than the free version?
I'm planning on running OSX as a guest. I've googled around and it seems possible using KVM which I believe proxmox is also using.

If it's possible in proxmox, I'll subscribe so I'll get better support.

By the way, I already have experience with KVM/Xen and have been successful with win7 vga passhtrough several times already.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dietmar]

Anyway on to my question. Is the enterprise version more updated than the free version?

no, the enterprise versions is a few weeks older, but better tested.

I'm planning on running OSX as a guest. I've googled around and it seems possible using KVM which I believe proxmox is also using.

AFAIK running OSX inside guest is problematic due to OSX licensing problems.

 

[LnxBil]

Dietmar is right, it's problematic, but possible. I run an instance of Proxmox from an external FireWire drive on my iMac and it works to virtualize some MacOS versions.

There are a lot of things that do not work and even more if you want to break Apple's licensing policy by running MacOS on non-Apple hardware.

Nevertheless, If you want to virtualize MacOS, you're better of by virtualizing it with e.g. Parallels, VMware or VirtualBox on actual MacOS.

 

[percb28]

Dietmar is right, it's problematic, but possible. I run an instance of Proxmox from an external FireWire drive on my iMac and it works to virtualize some MacOS versions.

There are a lot of things that do not work and even more if you want to break Apple's licensing policy by running MacOS on non-Apple hardware.

Nevertheless, If you want to virtualize MacOS, you're better of by virtualizing it with e.g. Parallels, VMware or VirtualBox on actual MacOS.

I'm well aware of the license issue. It's for gaming purposes. What I want is, to keep everything in one machine instead of swithching to my mac every time I can't run a game on linux natively. I fire up my window guest only as a last resort (if there is no linux or mac native client and I absolutely want to play that game now rather than wait for native clients). This is to support mac or linux games.

If only OSX had something similar to kvm/xen which can pass vga to the guest. That would be ideal for me. A mac pro would be nice for that. I'm not getting one until I'm sure it can run windows/linux with passhthrough cause it's gonna burn a very big hole in my wallet.

 

[LnxBil]

VMware and Paralles provide virtualized drivers for gaming on MacOS which work (not as good as a real card, but it's pretty decent). Wine is also very good for most of the games, of course not all of it.

I don't think Proxmox the right tool for the things you want to accomplish. It's a very good data center virtualization software, no gaming console.

 

[Q-wulf]

This thread:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/mini-howto-running-mac-os-x-10-9-under-proxmox-3-3.19722/
mentioned they got osx el Capitan to run on Proxmox.

Its on my to-do list, but first i need to get that windows 10 running with GPU passthrough

 

[percb28]

@Q-wulf : Thanks for the link. I've already managed passhtrough for both of my vid card. I'm in the process of running two vms and passing one card to each vm, running them simultanously. (I'm using my cpu's igp for proxmox, and reserving two vidcards for VM use in case you wondering how I did it.)

@LnxBil: Parellels and Vmware are great, but, vga passhtrough is the best when it comes to gaming with vm. And actually proxmox is a great solution for me. Before proxmox, I use a standard linux distro running kvm or xen for windows guest. But I usually mess around with my linux system and end up doing a reinstall which destroy my existing vms. With proxmox, I can do that without worrying about my other vms getting wiped out. Unless I end up messing around with the proxmox server that is.

 

[Q-wulf]

@Q-wulf : Thanks for the link. I've already managed passhtrough for both of my vid card. I'm in the process of running two vms and passing one card to each vm, running them simultanously. (I'm using my cpu's igp for proxmox, and reserving two vidcards for VM use in case you wondering how I did it.)[...]

Any chance the combination is a AMD 290x and windows 10 ?

 

[percb28]

its an r9 270 and nvidia 960. I've read that nvidia has better osx support. I would have gotten a 980 or 970, but it's risky when attempting passhtrough with nvidia and this is the first time I used this card for this purpose. AMD is a safer bet and I had lots of good experience with it. And yeah a manage to passthrough 2 5970's before, can't remember if x-fire worked or not though.

 

[percb28]

Well, installing OSX with vga passhtrough was a painful experience. Had problems with my 960, turns out my r9 270 worked like a charm. Guess I'm lucky with AMD.

Thanks again Q-wulf, the link you provided, pointed me to the right direction.

 

[Q-wulf]

[...]

Thanks again Q-wulf, the link you provided, pointed me to the right direction.

Good to see that this worked for you I will test this next after trying to "finally" get windows 10 going on my homelab (ran into some issues related to Swap on ZFS-Raid-1 + work)

Maybe in the end i shall finally be able to achieve my dream of Proxmox powering a MacBookPro 17" passing through all Notebook functionality (GPU/Keyboard/touchpad/Audio) to a KVM running OSX. And have it autostart when start the MBP

 

[percb28]

Update now running El Capitan, everything working with Nvidia 960 and onboard audio ACL989 passthrough.

 

[Q-wulf]

any chance you can publish the steps you have taken ?

 

[percb28]

If it's alright with the moderators here. Then yeah I can create a mini guide for it.

 

[master5227]

Bump? I'm wanting to do the same thing, but I can't really seem to find any other guides. I'd love it if you wrote something up.