Mavericks server guest on Mavericks/Apple hardware

[james reynolds]

I'm using an iMac with Mac OS X Mavericks (client).

When creating a new guest I have the option to select Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks (64 bit) but I have searched like crazy but I can't find any legit instructions for installing 10.9 Server guests. The 10.9 installer is an app. I've found instructions for digging into the 10.9 install app and making an ISO and I tried that and it boots but hangs and doesn't finish booting up.

Are there any instructions for making a 10.9 server guest for people using Apple hardware and OS? Do I need to be running OS X Server on the host?

[rpmurray]

Can you attach a copy of the VBox.log file from your last installation attempt?

[mpack]

Zip the log before attaching it please.

[james reynolds]

Here's the log. I'm looking at it but I'm not sure what I should be looking for.

[james reynolds]

This is what the VM window looks like.

[mpack]

I see nothing obviously wrong in the log, well that is apart from lots of lines line this :-

00:05:25.375913 EFI: VBoxDbg> loadimage64 '.efi' 0xfffec064 LB 0x0
00:05:25.375964 EFI: VBoxDbg> loadimage64 '.efi' 0x2000120 LB 0x0
00:05:25.376015 EFI: VBoxDbg> loadimage64 '.efi' 0x2009b20 LB 0x2cc0
00:05:25.376060 EFI: VBoxDbg> loadimage64 '.efi' 0x200ca20 LB 0x45c0
00:05:25.376190 EFI: VBoxDbg> loadimage64 '.efi' 0x2011220 LB 0x7b20

Did you turn on the VBox internal debugger?

I know nothing about Mavericks, but I'd say that if you have a CD with an executable app on it, then either that app is intended to burn a CD burner, or you have an updater, not an installer.

[james reynolds]

Did you turn on the VBox internal debugger?

I know nothing about Mavericks, but I'd say that if you have a CD with an executable app on it, then either that app is intended to burn a CD burner, or you have an updater, not an installer.

Apple doesn't ship CD's for any products anymore (I don't even think any of their current computers even come with CD/DVD drives anymore either). Mavericks comes as an app download from Apple's Mac App Store (http://www.apple.com/osx/apps/app-store.html). When a user runs the application it does a number of things. First, it partitions the boot disk (if not already partitioned). Then it puts a bootable disk image onto that partition. The actual installer packages are somewhere else, I can’t remember where. They are 4 GB. The instructions I found showed how to find the disk image inside of the Mavericks installer, how to combine the installer disk image and the 4GB installers, and then how to convert it all into an ISO.

I guess the main reason I posted about this is because I can’t believe there aren’t any official instructions how to install Mavericks when there is an option in the GUI to choose Mavericks. I am a first time user. I haven’t read all of the docs on Virtual Box, but I think I’ve read the relevant docs and searched pretty good but all I can find are a lot of YouTube videos to installing Mavericks guests on Windows hosts with non-Apple hardware. I found a single webpage describing how to do it legitimately. Does "beta Mac support” (as the docs say) basically mean there aren’t docs for the Mac?

In the mean time, I'll read the troubleshooting chapter and see if I can use what's in there to figure out what's wrong.

[rpmurray]

Socratis has a basic recipe for installing OS X in VirtualBox here.

Generally once you get the VirtualBox settings correct there are only three issues when you try to install OS X (four if you include the need to create an ISO from the 10.9 OS X app that Apple has users download).

1). Your host CPU must be supported by the version of OS X and that information be passed through to the VM. Yours is and VB does.
2). Your Model Identifier must be a Mac model supported by the version of OS X and that information be passed through to the VM. Yours is and VB does.
3). Your motherboard identifier must be a Mac motherboard supported by the version of OS X and that information be passed through to the VM. Yours is but this information is not passed to the VM.

Run the following two commands using Terminal to fix issue 3. Make sure the VMs are shut down and you've quit the VB application first.

Code: Select all

VBoxManage setextradata "Test" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct" "Mac-77EB7D7DAF985301"
VBoxManage setextradata "Test" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiChassisVersion" "Mac-77EB7D7DAF985301"

This assumes that Test is the name you gave the VM. The board id is for your iMac which according to your log file is an iMac "Core i5" 2.9 21.5-Inch (Late 2013)

[james reynolds]

I tried what you said and it still hangs at the same spot. Here's a list of what I've done. I deleted the VM and started over (named it OSX10.9). I ran the commands you listed (but changed the name from Test to OSX10.9). Started it, hung. I deleted that VM and started over and I made the changes that Socratis describes. It still hung. Examined the log file but didn't find anything that stood out to me. I read chapter 12 of the manual and ran it using --debug and tried out a few commands but that was way out of my league.

I'm including a zip of the latest log file.

Just to be complete, the instructions I used to create the Mavericks ISO is located here: https://gist.github.com/raultm/7422237.

I am curious where the board ID (Mac-77EB7D7DAF985301) came from. My computer is indeed an iMac14,3 Core i5, 2.9 GH 21.5 inch.

EDIT: looks like `ioreg -l | grep board-id` gets me that number. I'm just curious how you associated my model with the number.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[rpmurray]

I'm just curious how you associated my model with the number.

The log file indicated that your iMac had a model identifier of iMac14,3:

00:00:00.338670 DMI Product Name: iMac14,3
00:00:00.570070 DMI: Using DmiSystemProduct from host: iMac14,3

The log also indicated the processor being used:

00:00:00.642886 Full Name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4570S CPU @ 2.90GHz

Using everymac.com to look up the iMac with the model identifier and cpu finds only one match Apple iMac "Core i5" 2.9 21.5-Inch (Late 2013) Specs.

Using the Geekbench Browser to look up your iMac model and checking the details of those with the same model shows the motherboard ID. You need to tread carefully in Geekbench because there are a lot of users spoofing Macs in the results. I usually take a sample of 10 or 20 to weed out any fakes.

I haven't actually tried installing a new VM for Mavericks using VirtualBox 4.3.10 yet. I just moved over the Snow Leopard and Lion ones I'd created in earlier versions of VB to see if they worked (Yes, they do). I currently run Snow Leopard on my iMac11,3 and have a project up that's keeping me from restarting using the Mavericks partition to see if I can replicate what you are seeing, but I should be finished by this weekend.

Maybe Socratis will stop by before then and give us some pointers on how to make this work.

In the meantime, you may want to use the instructions on Macworld, How to make a bootable Mavericks install drive. Then make an ISO from that. The ISO needs to contain some hidden partitions that are used to install Mavericks so when creating the ISO make sure you're selecting the whole disk and not just the visible partition. I'm not an expert on shell scripting so I don't know if the script you found on GitHub copies over the necessary partitions when it creates the ISO.

[socratis]

Thanks rpmurray for pointing out my recipe. I had forgotten about it . Here's a couple of more updates (it should really turn in a HowTo, but I'm not "green" enough).

Download VBox 4.3.6 through 4.3.10. Give it a shot with all of them. Different OSX versions have different issues with each and every version. X fixes Y, but K breaks with L. Host and/or guest. Difficult to say which version breaks what (not enough man-hours to try all different combinations). See for example #12818.

Par example, 4.3.8 had an issue that would not pass the appropriate number of CPUs and you had to issue the command (see #12736):

VBoxManage setextradata "Mac OS X 10.9" VBoxInternal/CPUM/MSRs/MsrCoreThreadCount/First 0x00000035

The issues that I mentioned in my previous recipe are mostly done by deleting or renaming "/System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext/". Updates to the "latest and greatest" may overwrite this. For 10.5, I had to make a clone, update its "sibling" with 10.5.8 and before booting, removing/renaming the kext in question.

[ChipMcK]

I'm using an iMac with Mac OS X Mavericks (client).

When creating a new guest I have the option to select Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks (64 bit) but I have searched like crazy but I can't find any legit instructions for installing 10.9 Server guests. The 10.9 installer is an app. I've found instructions for digging into the 10.9 install app and making an ISO and I tried that and it boots but hangs and doesn't finish booting up.

Are there any instructions for making a 10.9 server guest for people using Apple hardware and OS? Do I need to be running OS X Server on the host?

Perhaps this How to install OS X on VirtualBox
or this one Running OS X on VirtualBox

[james reynolds]

I have tried this on 4 different computers and I keep getting the same thing. I've recreated my installer. Still not sure what I'm doing wrong.

UEFI Interactive Shell v2.0 UEFI v2.31 (EDK II, 0x00010000). Revision 1.02
Mapping table
BLK0: Alias(s):
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x2)/Sata(0x0,0x0,0x0)
BLK1: Alias(s):
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x2)/Sata(0x0,0x0,0x0)
BLK2: Alias(s):
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x2)/Sata(0x0,0x0,0x0)/CDROM(0x0)
BLK3: Alias(s):
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1F,0x2)/Sata(0x0,0x0,0x0)/CDROM(0x0)
Press ESC in 0 seconds to skip startup.nsh or any other key to continue.
2.0 Shell>

I've included the log from a Mac Mini. I'm hoping someone can help.

[ChipMcK]

Considering that Mavericks Server is packaged as an application to be installed on Mavericks Client, shouldn't this discussion be in forum VirtualBox on Mac OS X Hosts ?

[james reynolds]

I'm confused, do I need to have Server installed on the host or guest? I thought it needed to be installed in the guests. Maybe I'm wrong and that would explain why it's not working!