This tutorial for installing macOS Big Sur Final using OpenCore has been adapted for Proxmox from Kholia’s OSX-KVM project and Leoyzen’s OpenCore configuration for KVM. You can get the full sourcecode on my GitHub here.
Requirements
I’ll assume you already have Proxmox 6 installed. You also need a real Mac available in order to fetch the OSK key.
Your Proxmox host computer’s CPU must support SSE 4.2, so for Intel your CPU must be at least as new as Nehalem, which was the first CPU generation to bear the “Core” i5/i7 branding. Older CPUs will cause the finder to repeatedly crash after installation completes (with an Illegal Instruction exception in the graphics code).
Modern AMD CPUs also support SSE 4.2 and will work with this guide.
First step: Create an installation ISO
Download my copy of the OSX-KVM repository using the download button, and unzip it:
https://github.com/thenickdude/OSX-KVM
First we need to install some build requirements. If you will be building the installer ISO on macOS, open up the Terminal and run this command to install the commandline tools:
xcode-select --installIf you’re building the ISO on Linux, you instead need to run this command (these are the package names for Ubuntu or similar distributions, they may need adjustment on other distributions):
sudo apt install g++ git qemu-utils libxml2-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev cmake libbz2-dev libfuse-dev fuse autoconf unzip
Now in the Terminal, from the root of OSX-KVM, run:
cd scripts/bigsur make BigSur-recovery.img
This will download the Big Sur installer from Apple’s software distribution servers and build a BigSur-recovery.img file for you. Upload this file to your Proxmox’s ISO store directory (typically /var/lib/vz/template/iso). Although we’re putting it in the ISO directory so that we can use it with Proxmox’s ISO picker later, this a raw disk image rather than a true ISO.
If you’re building the installer on macOS, you can build a full installer instead of just a recovery, which will mean that macOS won’t have to download Big Sur files during installation, and so won’t require an Internet connection. Simply ask it to build BigSur-full.img instead:
cd scripts/bigsur make BigSur-full.img
This option is not available when building the installer on Linux.
Prepare an OpenCore image
Download the OpenCore.iso.gz file from the newest release in my repository (that says it’s Big Sur compatible), double click it to unpack it, and upload it to Proxmox’s ISO store at /var/lib/vz/template/iso. Although it has a .iso file extension, this is actually a hard disk image. (You need v10 or newer)
Fetch the OSK authentication key
macOS checks that it is running on real Mac hardware, and refuses to boot on third-party hardware. You can get around this by reading an authentication key out of your real Mac hardware (the OSK key). Save the first block of C code from this page as smc_read.c. In a command prompt, change into the same directory as that file and run:
xcode-select --install # If you don't already have gcc gcc -o smc_read smc_read.c -framework IOKit ./smc_read
It’ll print out the 64 character OSK for you. Make a note of it.
Every Mac uses the same OSK, so don’t be surprised that it doesn’t look like a random string!
Create the VM
From the Proxmox web UI, create a new virtual machine as shown below.
Keep a note of your VM’s ID 
Select the OpenCore ISO you uploaded and set OS type to “Other” 
Set graphics to “VMWare Compatible”, set BIOS to OVMF (UEFI), set Machine to Q35, tick QEMU Agent, tick Add EFI Disk and pick storage for it 
Set the size of the hard disk (64GB or greater, 32GB is too small). Attach it to virtio0. Enable discard to support TRIM. 
Set the number of cores for the VM, use a power of two (e.g. 1, 2, 4, 8). Set the CPU to Penryn. 
I chose a memory size of 4096MB 
Choose VMWare vmxnet3 for the network model
In the Options page for the VM, ensure that “use tablet for pointer” is set to “Yes”.
In the Hardware page for the VM, add a second DVD drive at IDE0, set it to use your BigSur-full.img or BigSur-recovery.img.
Don’t try to start the VM just yet. First, SSH into your Proxmox server so we can make some edits to the configuration files.
Edit /etc/pve/qemu-server/YOUR-VM-ID-HERE.conf (with nano or vim). Add this line, being sure to substitute the OSK you extracted earlier into the right place:
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk="THE-OSK-YOU-EXTRACTED-GOES-HERE" -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2
A USB keyboard is added here because macOS doesn’t support QEMU’s default PS/2 keyboard. Ensure the args are all on a single line!
We also need to add a -cpu argument. If your host CPU is Intel, add this to the end of the “args” line:
-cpu host,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc
This will pass through all of the features that your CPU supports. OpenCore’s config will pretend to macOS that the CPU’s model name is Penryn for compatibility.
If your host CPU is AMD, or the above argument doesn’t work for you, use this more-compatible alternative:
-cpu Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+fma,+fma4,+bmi1,+bmi2,+xsave,+xsaveopt,check
This pretends that your CPU is Penryn, which will keep macOS happy even if your host CPU is AMD, and adds a bunch of newer required and optional CPU features on top. Features that your host CPU doesn’t support will be ignored (a warning will be printed to the console during launch with qm start 1xx), but note that macOS won’t work without SSE4.2 support.
Now find the lines that define the two “ISOs” (ide0 and ide2), and remove the “,media=cdrom” part from them. Add “,cache=unsafe” in its place. This will treat these as hard disks rather than DVD drives.
Save your changes, return to the Options tab, and change the boot order to put IDE2 (the OpenCore image) first. Your final VM configuration file should resemble this:
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk="..." -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -cpu host,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc balloon: 0 bios: ovmf bootdisk: ide2 cores: 4 cpu: Penryn efidisk0: vms:vm-100-disk-1,size=1M ide0: isos:iso/BigSur-full.img,cache=unsafe,size=2094688K ide2: isos:iso/OpenCore-v10.img,cache=unsafe,size=150M machine: q35 memory: 4096 name: bigsur net0: vmxnet3=...,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1 numa: 1 ostype: other virtio0: vms:vm-100-disk-0,cache=unsafe,discard=on,size=64G scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci smbios1: uuid=... sockets: 1 vga: vmware
Configure Proxmox
On Proxmox, run “echo 1 > /sys/module/kvm/parameters/ignore_msrs” to avoid a bootloop during macOS boot. To make this change persist across Proxmox reboots, run:
echo "options kvm ignore_msrs=Y" >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf && update-initramfs -k all -u
Install Big Sur
Now start up your VM, it should boot to the OpenCore boot picker:
Press enter to boot the “Install macOS Beta” entry and the installer should appear.
If you built a recovery installer, the icon will instead be an image of a hard disk and be labelled “MacOS Base System”.
Our virtual hard drive needs to be erased/formatted before we can install to it, so select the Disk Utility option. Follow the steps below to format the disk:
Select Disk Utility 
Erase the main disk (it’ll appear as VirtIO Block Media). Choose APFS. I called mine “Main”. Avoid “Encrypted” at this stage because I have not tested that scenario
Now we’re ready to begin installation!
Install macOS 
Choose the disk you erased 
It’s installing!
After the first stage of installation, the VM will reboot 3 or 4 times in quick succession, and each time you must pick the “macOS Installer” entry (the second one here, with the hard disk icon) to continue installation. It will not be selected for you automatically:
If your keyboard isn’t responding on this screen, exit the Console tab in Proxmox and re-enter it. If you get a “prohibited” sign like this appearing, hit the Reset button on the VM to try again:
Now the installation is complete and the macOS Installer entry disappears, so pick the name of your main disk to boot (mine’s called Main).
Answer the initial install questions, and you’ll be logged on! Note that you might want to hold off on logging into your Apple ID until you’ve configured your Mac’s serial number in OpenCore.
Note that it will be really sluggish for a few minutes after the first boot while the system performs housekeeping tasks.
Make the OpenCore install permanent
We’re currently booting using OpenCore from the attached OpenCore ISO. Let’s install that to the hard drive instead. Pop open Terminal and run “diskutil list” to see what drives we have available.
Use “sudo dd if=<source> of=<dest>” to copy the “EFI” partition from the OpenCore CD and overwrite the EFI partition on the hard disk. The OpenCore CD is the small disk (~150MB) that only has an EFI partition on it, and the main hard disk is the one with the large (>30GB) Apple_APFS “Container” partition on it.
In my case these EFI partitions ended up being called disk2s1 and disk0s1 respectively, so I ran “sudo dd if=/dev/disk2s1 of=/dev/disk0s1” (note that if you get these names wrong, you will overwrite the wrong disk and you’ll have to start the installation over again!).
Now shut down the VM, and remove both the OpenCore and the Big Sur installer drives from the Hardware tab. On the Options tab, edit the boot order to place your virtio0 disk as the first disk. Boot up. If everything went well, you should see the OpenCore boot menu, and you can select your “Main” disk to boot Big Sur:
Sleep management
I found that I was unable to wake Big Sur from sleep using my mouse or keyboard. If you encounter the same problem, you can either disable system sleep in Big Sur’s Energy Saver settings to avoid the issue, or you can manually wake the VM up from sleep from Proxmox by running:
qm monitor YOUR-VM-ID-HERE
system_wakeup
quit
Editing your OpenCore/EFI settings
The Configuration.pdf that explains the OpenCore config.plist file can be found along with the OpenCore release on my GitHub.
To mount your EFI partition in macOS so you can edit your config.plist, first check the “identifier” of your EFI partition in the terminal:
~$ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (external, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *512.1 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 511.9 GB disk0s2
Then you can mount it like so:
sudo mkdir /Volumes/EFI
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI
Now you can edit /Volumes/EFI/OC/config.plist with your favourite text editor to make your changes. (TextEdit is not a great choice because it likes to insert curly quotes into the file and otherwise break things, there are some dedicated plist editors available such as XCode).
If you’re unable to boot macOS, you can edit the config.plist using the “UEFI Shell” option in the OpenCore boot menu instead.
Enter “FS0:” and press enter to open up the first available filesystem, then run “edit EFI\OC\config.plist” (if the file isn’t found, try switching to another filesystem like fs1:). When you’re done editing, press control+Q to exit, “Y” to save, then run “exit” to return to the OpenCore menu. You need to reboot for your changes to take effect.
Automatic boot
In config.plist, you can set Misc/Boot/Timeout to a non-zero value to allow the default boot option be chosen automatically after that delay in seconds. I’ve disabled this by default because it causes the installer ISO to re-enter its main menu instead of continuing the second stage of installation.
Verbose boot
To boot macOS in Verbose mode to diagnose boot problems, edit config.plist to change the “bootargs” in the NVRam section from “keepsyms=1” to “keepsyms=1 -v”.
Changing screen resolution
To change macOS’ screen resolution, you need to edit the UEFI/Output/Resolution setting in config.plist, the default is 1920×1080@32.
You should be able to change this to any of the modes that the system OVMF menu offers (hit F2 at the start of guest boot and choose “Device Manager/OVMF Platform Configuration” to see which resolutions are available).
Video performance
Because there is no guest video acceleration available for macOS, video performance is poor.
In Google Chrome in the guest you will need to toggle off the setting to “use hardware acceleration when available” to improve issues with elements not being drawn or flickering (especially video). Safari may be a better choice.
macOS’s built in “Screen Sharing” feature offers dramatically better framerates and latency than Proxmox’s browser-based VNC console, so if you have a real Mac to act as a viewing console, you can enable that in the VM’s “Sharing” settings and connect to the VM using the Screen Sharing app from your Mac instead:
Apparently Screen Sharing is also compatible with VNC clients like RealVNC, so you should be able to connect to it from Linux or Windows consoles using RealVNC.
The real magic bullet for video performance is to pass through a compatible video card using PCIe passthrough (though note that Big Sur, like Catalina, does not support most NVidia cards). This offers near-native performance. You can read more about how I’m using PCIe passthrough on my own installation here.
USB passthrough
Since I want to use this as my primary computer, I want to use a USB keyboard and mouse plugged directly into Proxmox, rather than sending my input through the web VNC console.
Proxmox has good documentation for USB passthrough. Basically, run “qm monitor YOUR-VM-ID-HERE”, then “info usbhost” to get a list of the USB devices connected to Proxmox:
qm> info usbhost
Bus 3, Addr 12, Port 6, Speed 480 Mb/s
Class 00: USB device 8564:1000, Mass Storage Device
Bus 3, Addr 11, Port 5.4, Speed 12 Mb/s
Class 00: USB device 04d9:0141, USB Keyboard
Bus 3, Addr 10, Port 5.1.2, Speed 12 Mb/s
Class 00: USB device 046d:c52b, USB Receiver
Bus 3, Addr 9, Port 14.4, Speed 12 Mb/s
Class 00: USB device 046d:c227, G15 GamePanel LCD
Bus 3, Addr 8, Port 14.1, Speed 1.5 Mb/s
Class 00: USB device 046d:c226, G15 Gaming Keyboard
In this case I can add my keyboard and mouse to USB passthrough by quitting qm, then running:
qm set YOUR-VM-ID-HERE -usb1 host=04d9:0141
qm set YOUR-VM-ID-HERE -usb2 host=046d:c52b
This saves the devices to the VM configuration for you. You need to reboot to have the new settings apply. Note that the emulated USB3 device doesn’t work with macOS, so don’t set “usb3=1”.
You can also pass through USB devices by passing through an entire USB controller using Proxmox’s PCIe passthrough feature, which gives much better compatibility.
FileVault
FileVault now works with OpenCore, so you can encrypt your boot disk by using the option in macOS’ system security preferences. But be certain to keep a copy of your recovery key and keep your backups up to date.
Fixing “guest boots to UEFI shell”
If your guest ends up booting to the UEFI shell instead of showing the OpenCore boot menu, especially if you’ve just updated OpenCore to a new version, you’ll need to edit the guest’s UEFI boot entries to fix this.
At the very start of guest boot, hit F2 to enter guest UEFI settings.
First we’ll remove the old entries. Choose the Boot Maintenance option, then Boot Options -> Delete Boot Option. Use the spacebar to tick any old Clover or OpenCore entries (avoid ticking the EFI Internal Shell option, you want to keep that!). Select “Commit Changes and Exit”.
Now we’ll add the correct entry for OpenCore back in. Select Add Boot Option. Navigate through the device tree to EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi and select it, name this new option “OpenCore” or similar. Again Commit Changes and Exit.
Go to the Change Boot Order and move OpenCore to the top. Commit Changes and Exit.
Now back out to the main menu and choose Reset, and you should successfully boot into OpenCore this time.
Fixing iMessage
iCloud and the App Store should already be working for you, but for iMessage support you must follow these steps to mark your network adapter as built-in:
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/universal/iservices.html#fixing-en0
Disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection)
You can disable SIP by selecting the Recovery option from the OpenCore boot menu, then use the top menu to open the Terminal and run “csrutil disable”. Then reboot.
This may be needed to run unsigned kexts or perform other hacks (it looks like I needed this for WhateverGreen to work with my passthrough graphics card).
Upgrading from macOS Catalina
First make a backup or snapshot of your system! Being able to roll back when the upgrade goes wrong is a real lifesaver.
You’ll need to update OpenCore to my v10 release before the upgrade. You can follow the instructions in the “Editing your OpenCore settings” section above to mount your EFI disk. Then you can replace the OpenCore files in the mounted “EFI” disk with the ones from the OpenCoreEFIFolder.zip file in my newest OpenCore release.
Reboot to make sure that you can still boot Catalina.
If you’re using any PCIe passthrough devices (particularly video cards) you’ll want to disable those and set “vga: vmware” instead, so you can install using Proxmox’s web console from a different machine during the upgrade. This avoids installer problems triggered by flaky video card passthrough, especially host lockups caused by the AMD Reset Bug.
Now you can upgrade to Big Sur using the App Store like you would on a real Mac.
I tried doing this on Linux. Was able to login to the VM and the Mac OS boot disk appears. Here, the option is to install from recovery image which requires internet access on the VM Opencore bootloader. I tried setting up the IP and gateway using ifconfig/route commands respectively via “Terminal” provided by the Utilities in the Recovery window. But, it didn’t work. Any suggestions on how I can setup the internet? Meanwhile, now I am back to the old method of making the full dmg instead of recovery dmg.
I’ve not heard a method for configuring the networking except by providing a DHCP server it can use.
Building a full installer requires a Mac
I use static IP instead of DHCP. Got the Mac up and running. The internet is working fine on the Mac VM. But, the apple ID isn’t working. It says “Couldn’t communicate with the server”. Any ideas?
I had a lot of trouble with this as well installing it on a Proxmox on a remote server in a datacenter.
I was able to set the IP and the gateway (ifconfig en0 IP netmask and route – add default GW) but I was unable to set the nameserver(s) (using scutil).
What I did was added another small server as a Proxmox guest running a DHCP server (www.dhcpserver.de/CMS) … et voila …
Hi Nick,
Thanks for putting together this lovely guide. I made it to the “Install Big Sur” step. However, in Disk Utility, I do not see a VirtIO Block Media, only the following:
Internal
– QEMU HARDDISK Media (157.3 MB)
– Install macOS Big Sur (14.69 GB)
Disk Images
– macOS Base System (1.79 GB)
I am using the BigSur-full.img installation and OpenCore-v10.iso. Here is the output of my VM’s config:
agent: 1
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”…” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -cpu Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+fma,+fma4,+bmi1,+bmi2,+xsave,+xsaveopt,check
balloon: 0
bios: ovmf
bootdisk: ide2
cores: 8
cpu: Penryn
description: boot%3A order=ide2;scsi0;net0
efidisk0: local-lvm:vm-101-disk-1,size=4M
ide0: local:iso/BigSur-full.img,cache=unsafe
ide2: local:iso/OpenCore-v10.iso,cache=unsafe
machine: q35
memory: 32768
name: bigsur
net0: vmxnet3=0E:B9:B3:E4:58:12,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
ostype: other
scsi0: local-lvm:vm-101-disk-0,cache=unsafe,discard=on,size=256G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=…
sockets: 1
vga: vmware
vmgenid: …
Do you by any chance know how to resolve this?
Many thanks!
Nic
In your config you need to rename scsi0 to virtio0 (you’re aiming for the disk to be virtio-blk, not virtio-scsi)
Hi Nicholas,
That worked perfectly, many thanks for your help!
Nic
Hi Nicolas, thanks for this amazing guide! I’m new to proxmox and with it was able to install Big Sur.
However I’m facing this strange issue, I’m passing through an usb keyboard but after I hit enter in OpenCore boot picker to select my Main disk I got a black screen, if I hit enter in my host keyboard in Proxmox’s Console, it works, I don’t see any error with dmesg just the black screen. I need this because I want to passthrough my gpu also and without a keyboad I’m stuck in OpenCore, any suggestion?
PS:Sorry for my bad english.
Hello,
There is a problem that when I install MacOs and ask for my Apple Id then after I enter it it sends out the code for two factor authentication and after entering it I get the message “Could not communicate with the server”. And it’s also interesting that I can log in to the App Store.
Can someone please help me with this?
Click skip instead of logging in at this step
Hi Nick,
Really love the great work you’re doing here.
The AMD patches have seen some recent updates here:
https://github.com/AMD-OSX/AMD_Vanilla
This would be awesome for those of us trying this on AMD systems (e.g. EPYC, Threadripper etc.), and it allows near native support. (Possibly can use host CPU instead of Penryn).
Is there any chance of you adding this to your builds, or maybe making a second branch for AMD?
Also – I believe you’re current based on OpenCore 0.6.3, right? I checked, and I think 0.6.4 is out, with some AMD fixes as well. Any chance you’re doing a refreshed build sometime? =)
Thanks,
Victor
I don’t update my OpenCore build unless there is some clear advantage to the new version, because it’s tedious retesting everything.
It’s not clear that the host-CPU approach is needed for AMD, since you can just pass a bunch of features instead, and then you don’t have to constantly maintain a suite of patches as the OS is updated. I don’t know if they’re properly detected though since I don’t have an AMD.
What are you running with your Mac VM?
I was running the “make BigSur-recovery.img” and ran into an error.
hdiutil convert BaseSystem.dmg -format RdWr -o BigSur-recovery.img
Usage: hdiutil convert -format -o [options]
hdiutil convert -help
make: *** [BigSur-recovery.img] Error 1
I changed hdiutil command as follows and it worked.
– hdiutil convert $< -format RdWr -o $@
+ hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o $@ $<
Thanks for this great blog post.
Which OS were you running this command on?
Hey Nick,
Thanks for the great guide. Everything is working great for me except GPU passthrough. I am able to attach my RX 580 to the VM and get through the boot loader, but then it gets stuck on the Apple logo. When turning on verbose boot, I can see the kernel is stuck on “PCI configuration begin,” I’ve tried various solutions and can’t get anything to work. Any ideas?
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x
MB: Gigabyte x570 Taichi
GPU: Gigabyte RX 580
vm.conf
agent: 1
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -cpu Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+fma,+fma4,+bmi1,+bmi2,+xsave,+xsaveopt,check
bios: ovmf
boot: order=virtio0
cores: 16
cpu: Penryn
efidisk0: fast0:vm-103-disk-1,size=1M
hostpci0: 0f:00,pcie=1,x-vga=1
machine: q35
memory: 16384
name: macos
numa: 0
ostype: other
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=a60f0594-c296-4799-92c5-a95abb8bfd28
sockets: 1
vga: none
virtio0: fast0:vm-103-disk-0,cache=unsafe,discard=on,size=128G
vmgenid: 5b0a982f-95c0-4743-8227-7f63764b301c
Does it freeze at the 50% mark on the progress bar? This is the point where the GPU driver is started.
The RX580 suffers from the AMD Reset Bug, so you must ensure that it has never been used since the last host power-cycle. It may be fatal if your host BIOS settings has it set as the primary display.
The bar actually seems to freeze at the 0% mark, never progressing at all.
I was able to apply the vendor-reset patch correctly (at least it seems to be when testing in other VMs), but I’m having the same problem even on fresh power cycles.
I’ve never seen GPU problems being triggered that early on the bar, are you sure the VM actually boots when the passthrough is removed?
Also try launching the VM on the command line like “qm start 1xx” so you can see any warning messages being printed (check dmesg output too)
Yep, VM works fine without GPU using the VMware compatible display, and the GPU works fine in other VMs. dmesg output is just related to the reset patch and the KVM start log just seems to reference a CPU feature (but it does this without GPU as well). I can’t really seem to find anything that points to a specific problem unfortunately.
KVM Start Log:
kvm: warning: host doesn’t support requested feature: CPUID.01H:ECX.pcid [bit 17]
kvm: warning: host doesn’t support requested feature: CPUID.80000001H:ECX.fma4 [bit 16]
Relevant dmesg:
[ 57.062314] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: enabling device (0400 -> 0403)
[ 57.062458] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: version 1.1
[ 57.062460] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing pre-reset
[ 57.062536] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing reset
[ 57.062540] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: CLOCK_CNTL: 0x0, PC: 0x2b50
[ 57.062542] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing post-reset
[ 57.082271] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: reset result = 0
[ 57.082390] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x19@0x270
[ 57.082398] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x1b@0x2d0
[ 57.082404] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x1e@0x370
[ 57.102241] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.1: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 57.103553] vfio-pci 0000:04:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
[ 57.145072] vfio-pci 0000:0c:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x19@0x270
[ 57.145076] vfio-pci 0000:0c:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x25@0x400
[ 57.145078] vfio-pci 0000:0c:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x26@0x410
[ 57.145080] vfio-pci 0000:0c:00.0: vfio_ecap_init: hiding ecap 0x27@0x440
[ 57.202135] vfio-pci 0000:0c:00.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 57.244565] vfio-pci 0000:11:00.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 58.679766] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: version 1.1
[ 58.679769] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing pre-reset
[ 58.679841] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing reset
[ 58.679846] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: CLOCK_CNTL: 0x0, PC: 0x2a44
[ 58.679847] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: performing post-reset
[ 58.699664] vfio-pci 0000:0f:00.0: AMD_POLARIS10: reset result = 0
Are you using my OpenCore image or has it been replaced or customised?
I am using your OpenCore image. Only thing that has been modified is the serial numbers and such for iMessage.
config.plist: https://pastebin.com/pD8GFCWd
Just tried to see if I could get into the Mac OS installer with GPU passthrough and that doesn’t work either. When turning on verbose boot, I am yet again greeted with “PCI configuration begin. I found the page below about the issue which seems to talk about it being a SSDT issue, however I am not sure how to fix this since OpenCore will not be running on bare metal.
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/troubleshooting/extended/kernel-issues.html#stuck-on-rtc-pci-configuration-begins-previous-shutdown-hpet-hid-legacy
I’ve really never seen anything like this, because both the installer and the early boot progress bar don’t use the full GPU driver and instead just limp along with OVMF’s graphics interface.
Actually that’s a good point, you don’t have my old pve-edk2-firmware package pinned from my old Clover tutorials do you?
No, I do not. This is the first time I am attempting to set up MacOS on Proxmox. Its a relatively new Proxmox install too (~3 months).
I seem to have found the problem. My motherboard shipped with an option enable called “Above 4G Decoding”, once disabled I am able to get into the installer just fine. You might want to note this in one of your guides somewhere, because others might experience the same issue. I’m still reinstalling but if you don’t hear from me again it seems the problem is solved. Thanks so much for your help!
Nick, have you tried to upgrade to 11.1? My install does not see the upgrade and if I try to upgrade it manually (downloading full 11.1) it starts to install, reboots and goes back to 11.01.
Mine didn’t see the upgrade either so I downloaded the full installer instead and ran that and had no issues.
When it reboots you need to pick the Installer option from the OpenCore boot menu manually, it rarely if ever selects it for you.
Hi, Nick.
I wonder if something like this would work for the Mac to share the radeon graphics card?
https://blog.ktz.me/passthrough-intel-igpu-with-gvt-g-to-a-vm-and-use-it-with-plex/
Might be limited to intel gpu
It only applies to Intel GPUs and GVT-g doesn’t offer direct display output.
Got it – thanks. Good for using hardware transcoding in, say, Plex in one VM and Jellyfin in another VM.
Not sure if you have seen this. I was able to go through the installation, but when it reboots and try to boot the osx drive from open core after the installer is done I get the loading screen with the bar full but it never goes any further than that.
Double check your OSK
Looks correct to me and all lower cases and the (c) part is not special characters.
Oh NVM. I goofed on the capitalization when I typed it in. Hurdle passed. Thank you soo much and sorry to be a bother.
Hello,
thank you for your nice tutorial. I did everything successfully according to your instructions, but the virtual machine hangs on the Appe logo after choosing Install MacOS.
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K
MB: ASUS STRIX Z270E GAMING
GPU: Vmware compatible
agent: 1
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -cpu host,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc
balloon: 0
bios: ovmf
boot: order=virtio0;ide2;net0
cores: 6
cpu: Penryn
efidisk0: data1:vm-101-disk-1,size=1M
ide0: local:iso/BigSur-full.img,cache=unsafe,size=14G
ide2: local:iso/OpenCore-v10.iso,cache=unsafe
machine: q35
memory: 8192
name: MacOS
net0: vmxnet3=E2:8C:F6:AA:0F:F9,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
ostype: other
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=64e49b6d-d743-48b5-bcba-44ae41a0f6d9
sockets: 1
virtio0: data1:vm-101-disk-0,cache=unsafe,discard=on,size=64G
vmgenid: a8d5c7a8-59bf-4f36-b878-ceb11b6a676a
Any Idea? Thank you!
Set cores:4 and try again
First, thank you for the brilliant tutorial. Now I have a MAC in my VM. 🙂 You wrote: “Note that you might want to hold off on logging into your Apple ID until you’ve configured your Mac’s serial number in OpenCore.”
How do I configure the Mac’s serial number? Do I set the serial number of my physical Mac there?
I didn’t find that in your instructions.
Thanks a lot
Steven
You can set whatever serial you like, or set no serial at all and OpenCore will compute one for you. Check out the guide here:
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Post-Install/universal/iservices.html#generate-a-new-serial
Quick stop?
Thanks to this blog I’ve become a tinkerer – setting up a Mac with RX 580 graphics and an Ubuntu server that takes the Intel GPU.
All good when things are working.
I’ve got a Realtek 2.5 Gb Ethernet port that requires me to update the drivers when I update the kernel (it’s supported in 5.9 but Proxmox is currently on 5.4.
I forgot to update shit down, and now don’t have a network connection. And my VMs are set to auto start, which means I fairly quickly lose access to the console when I plug in a monitor (the VMs take all my graphics and the screen goes black.
I have about 10 seconds from logging in until losing my screen.
Is there a quick command that will stop the auto start of all my containers (or at least the Mac (104) and the Ubuntu (101)) or turn it off for next boot? Then I can get in to reinstall my network drivers and get back on my merry way?
Unrelated, but this is what started it: trying to pass through a USB hard drive: I can pass through the USB address (find it using qm info usbhost) but the drive never shows in the Mac. Same with a thumb drive – any way to get hot pluggable usb storage on the Mac?
Thanks in advance for anyone’s assistance (particularly on quick stop issue)!
proofreading…sheesh!
>Is there a quick command that will stop the auto start of all my containers
I wish there was, I’ve seen this suggested several times on the Proxmox forums, to solve this very situation, but Proxmox seem resistant to the suggestion.
Hit the E key at the Proxmox boot menu to edit the kernel commandline, and remove the vfio arguments. Now your VM starts will fail so you’ll get to keep your hardware.
With your USB passthrough, make sure you aren’t ticking the usb3 option, because this controller isn’t supported by macOS.
To get hot-pluggable USB, PCIe passthrough an entire USB controller instead of using USB passthrough.
Thanks – I’ll try both when I’m back at the machine tomorrow. I really appreciate it.
>Hit the E key at the Proxmox boot menu to edit the kernel commandline, and remove the vfio arguments. Now your VM starts will fail so you’ll get to keep your hardware.
Worked great – thank you! Turns out the latest kernel (5.4.78-2-pve hated my network card (Realtek 2.5Gbps) and the script wouldn’t install, so I needed to downgrade to 5.4.65-1-pve.
>To get hot-pluggable USB, PCIe passthrough an entire USB controller instead of using USB passthrough.
I could access my keyboard, but for some reason storage won’t mount on my system. A USB Blu-Ray drive will work fine (passthrough and when passing the controller).
It’s possible that USB storage is actually working, but macOS is busy silently scanning the volume for errors before it surfaces it in the UI. It takes about 30 minutes to scan my 64GB CompactFlash card when I insert that, if macOS decides that it was inappropriately ejected last time. I think it MIGHT appear in Disk Utility before the scan finally finishes, or else Disk Utility will also hang when you open it until the scan finishes. This is likely to be the case if the LED on your USB drive is madly blinking.
Patience. Ok. I’ll give it another go and see where it ends up (I packed it away headless again…). Thanks so much!
Thanks for this complete guide. I could do all other than auto boot timeout. Everything works and RX570 makes it butter smooth. EFI editing is not giving me auto boot, this is the only annoyance, I need to go to Proxmox console and push Enter to boot.
Can anyone recommend a Bluetooth usb dongle that’s compatible w Mac? All I’ve found online expressly state they don’t work w Mac. And the one Nick linked to in his setup post is no longer for sale.
Thanks!
Search in/ask in Reddit’s “Hackintosh” subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/
Mine was super cheap and super generic, so I imagine there must be a ton of choices, although Handoff support is something I’ve never tried.
Good resource, thanks.
For anyone looking at this: it appears that both the TP-Link UB400 and ASUS BT400 will work for basic functions like keyboard, mice, and maybe some audio. No USB adapters appear to offer advanced (handoff, AppleWatch, etc.) functionality.
I went with the UB400 and will report back once it arrives. I’m looking to use my existing apple keyboard and trackpad, so fingers crossed.
TP-Link UB400 plugged in: apple wireless keyboard, apple trackpad, and bluetooth speaker all working great. None of the “advanced” features seem to be working (this was expected).
I followed your upgrade steps but everytime i run the install. Proxmox crashes and the vm freezes. i have catalina running from your steps before so i dont understand what could be wrong. I have replace the EFI and the opencore iso.. but still freezes. no core no nothing just hangs and then i lose access to all my vms.
Double check that you aren’t running out of host RAM or disk space.
I’m assuming you’re not using any hostpci passthrough yet?
No its not diskspace.. i have 167GB and 12GB of Ram assigned to it.. Plus i can turn off my other vm and the host still does the same thing. Im wondering if i just do a new install. So i may be running out of space overall. So i just ordered 1TB hard drives for the server and will update with a fresh install and let you know if issues. Thank you for the help.
It doesn’t matter how much you have assigned to the VM if the host is actually running out of RAM or disk space. How much free space does your Proxmox Storage have?
Hi Nick, I’ve seen a picture that bigsur can support virtIO network, I think that’s a good news.