Mac OS X (Workstation) in VMware Fusion

  2009-08-31      565 words, 3 minutes

• osx
• vmware

According to Hack VMWare Fusion 2 – Virtualize Tiger/Leopard, you should be able to run your a Tiger or Leopard installation (additionnally to the Server Edition) in a virtual machine.

That would be nice to test software and not dirt your real installation. Or just test Snow Leopard before wiping upgrading your MacBook Pro :-)

# 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

Happy testing !

[UPDATE 09/11/2010]

VMware Fusion 3 does not support those tweaks.
Check the end of this article for directions.
Quoting the article:
KR said…
Here’s how I created a virtual Mac OS X 10.6 (“client”) machine using VMware Fusion 3.1.1 (282344) and my copy of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard install disk (retail version). These instructions were cobbled together from previous posts with a lot of trial-and-error:

1. Quit VMware Fusion3 if running.
2. Apply the darwin patch as follows:

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

3. Create a fake Mac OS X Server install disk from a Mac OS X Snow Leopard install disk (retail version) as follows:

• Insert Mac OS X Snow Leopard install disk into your optical drive.
• Launch Disk Utility, select the device for your optical drive (note that this is NOT the Mac OS X install disk, but rather the device that has mounted it; the device should be named something like “HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N”).
• From Disk Utility’s File menu, choose “New > Disk Image from [device]” from the File menu, set the image format to “DVD/CD master” and create the disk image.
• Mount the new disk image and turn it into a fake Mac OS X Server install disk with the following command in Terminal:

# touch "/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist" 

4. Create a new virtual machine in VMware Fusion. I chose Mac OS X Server 10.6 64-bit as the type, but I suspect any type will work. Select the disk image from step 3 as the OS disk image.
5. Allow VMware Fusion to create your virtual machine and install Mac OS X Server 10.6 (really just your regular version of Mac OS X). After installation completes, the new virtual machine will boot and give you the “guest operating system is not Mac OS X Server” error. Let it shut down and proceed to the next step.
6. Choose “Show Package Contents” on virtual machine file for the machine created in step 4, then edit the vmx config file and change the firmware = "efi" line to firmware = "bios" (commenting this line out will NOT work).
7. Launch VMware Fusion once again and start your virtual machine. You’ll now be prompted by Mac OS X to create your administrator’s account. Have fun with your new Mac OS X virtual machine!