How to make Mac OS X virtual machine on my mac mini?

VMware Fusion and Parallels make creating OS X guests very easy, they can do this using the downloaded OS X installer from the App Store, VirtualBox however is old school and very, very fussy. VirtualBox will only accept either the old DVD retail installer disc for e.g. Snow Leopard (Server), or an ISO image created from say Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks or Yosemite. It will not accept a DMG.

DiskMakerX used to be able to create ISO images - this was back in the Lion DiskMaker era, it no longer has this function. There are various articles out there on how to do this in Terminal.app. I can confirm that this approach does work for VirtualBox, however the steps differ between Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks/Yosemite, I have not yet tried El Capitan.

It might also be possible to do this using say DeployStudio or similar as a NetBoot server and getting the VirtualBox guest to boot/install via that. This approach again works in VMware Fusion and Parallels and even ESXi.

While one cannot grumble about the price of VirtualBox - like Oracle's other projects i.e. MySQL and Java their attention to Mac details is very, very poor.

(Why is it that tech companies with bosses that used to be Apple board directors are some of the worst companies in terms of the quality of their Mac products? As mentioned above this applies to Larry Ellison/Oracle and also applied to Bill Campbell/Intuit.)

Note: To get OS X guests to work in VirtualBox apart from the above it seems there is also a lot of black magic involved. Yes sticking with the default 2GB memory allocation helps, it is also necessary to leave it set to use a single CPU core. See comment about their attention to Mac details is poor.

woodmeister50 wrote:

As far as licensing, running Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks

in a virtual machine does not violate the EULA as long as

the VM is run on Apple hardware.

This statement is also true for both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server

MlchaelLAX wrote:

woodmeister50 wrote:

As far as licensing, running Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks

in a virtual machine does not violate the EULA as long as

the VM is run on Apple hardware.

This statement is also true for both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server

The Apple EULA restrictions on virtualising OS X basically boils down to the following.

• You must do this on a real Mac, you are not allowed to do it on a big PC server, or a cheap PC
• You can only do this with Snow Leopard Server, or Lion, or Mountain Lion, or Mavericks, or Yosemite, or El Capitan, according to Apple's EULA you are not allowed do it with standard Snow Leopard or earlier versions
• You are allowed to do this for the purposes of testing, software development, or for personal non commercial purposes - meaning home use is ok, or running Apple's server software - hence the reference to Snow Leopard Server should be ok even for business purposes

From the above it quite clear that doing this to run on non genuine Apple Macs is illegal, and doing this to create a VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) setup is also illegal, it would also seem that doing this to run in a business environment a virtual cop of OS X for non-server functions is also illegal unless this is for software developer and/or testing.

Here is the relevant text -

(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non- commercial use.

The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services.

(As per http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf )

John Lockwood wrote:

MlchaelLAX wrote:

woodmeister50 wrote:

As far as licensing, running Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks

in a virtual machine does not violate the EULA as long as

the VM is run on Apple hardware.

This statement is also true for both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server

The Apple EULA restrictions on virtualising OS X basically boils down to the following.

You can only do this with Snow Leopard Server, or Lion, or Mountain Lion, or Mavericks, or Yosemite, or El Capitan, according to Apple's EULA you are not allowed do it with standard Snow Leopard or earlier versions

The Snow Leopard EULA does not prohibit its virtualization on a Mac running OS X Lion and thereafter.

John Lockwood wrote:

You can only do this with Snow Leopard Server, or Lion, or Mountain Lion, or Mavericks, or Yosemite, or El Capitan, according to Apple's EULA you are not allowed do it with standard Snow Leopard or earlier versions

That is false information. There is no restriction against installing Snow Leopard (non-Server) in a virtual machine on Apple hardware. What's true is that the virtual machine companies do not support it. That has nothing to do with the EULA. Virtual machine companies aren't in the business of enforcing EULAs between other parties.

Furthermore, installing 10.7 or later in a VM is only permitted if the host OS is the same. A 10.7 VM has to be run on a 10.7 host; 10.8 on a 10.8 host, and so on. Running, for example, a 10.8 virtual machine on a 10.11 host, is prohibited by the terms of the 10.8 license.

Here is the relevant text -

(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non- commercial use.

The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services.

(As per http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf )

Yes, thank you; I bolded the pertinent part. "The Apple Software" does not mean any software that Apple has ever or will ever release. It means the Apple Software accompanying the license in question. A 10.8 virtual machine cannot legally be run on a Mac running a 10.11 host, because the host Mac is not already running the Apple Software. It is running different Apple software covered by a separate license agreement.

Hello,

Although the thread is three years old I think it may still be relevant nowadays.

I want to make a Mac OS VM to set it up as a Continuous Integration server and keep my host OS as a clean developer station (I used VMWare Fusion 8.5 on Mac OS 10.11).

VMWare offers a simple and straightforward way to do it: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displa yKC&externalId=2129534

Basically the steps are:

- download the Mac OS installer application from the App Store

- create a new VM in VMWare and choose "Install from disc or image"

- drag and drop the Mac OS installer application

- VMWare detects the guest OS, you can customise the VM from there

- start the VM and choose to reinstall Mac OS X when prompted

They also add a reminder about the EULA, stating that you can install up to 2 versions of Mac OS on a Mac already running it.