Anyone successfully using 10.13 on an ESXi host?

[MrP]

We're using esxi 6.0 update3a(released Sept '17) on a Macpro. 10.13 and it do not seem to get along. Booting from install-able media, disk utility won't see the virtual hard drives. Running an upgrade gets you to the 10.13(I assume) login screen once, then won't let you login and upon reboot gives you a circle with a slash through it.

[MrP]

Nevermind: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/rn/vsphere-vcenter-server-651-release-notes.html
"You can run the vCenter Server Appliance GUI and CLI installers on Microsoft Windows 2012 x64 bit, Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 x64 bit, Microsoft Windows 2016 x64 bit, and macOS Sierra."

[Craig_Whittaker]

I have a Mac mini server running ESXI 6.5 with a host running 10.13 (upgrade from 10.12.6) and everything when fine first time :)

[MrP]

I've upgraded to 6.5update1 + the October patch and am still seeing the same thing. After re-reading the note I posted from the release notes I see it isn't referencing high sierra as a supported guest os, which explains why I see 10.12 as the highest supported guest os on guest hardware version 13.

@Craig.Whittaker Would you mind booting from a high sierra installation ISO and let me know if you see the virtual hard disk?

[georgecm12]

I tried updating a VM from 10.12 to 10.13 on my ESXi 6.5 Update 1 (sans October patch, which I hadn't realized came out) and it no longer booted.

I assumed the culprit was APFS, but never had a chance to test updating to 10.13 without the APFS conversion to confirm.

[MrP]

Per suggestion of someone on the vmware communities ESXi forums I updated the bios of the MacPro I use, which has just made things worse. I found that I had to wipe ESXi completely off the system to install OSX 10.9 on the internal disk of the system because that is the only place and OS that the bios update for this system would run from. Yay apple! Prior to the wipe I had 1 vm that I was able to upgrade to 10.13 without issue.

After updating the bios I wiped the internal SSD and installed ESXi 6.5 u1 w/ the October update. Performance is TERRIBLE now when a VM has a snapshot. On a host with a 1tb SSD , 32gb of ram, 12core processor, it should be fine. 1vm running on the host with macos 10.12.6 with a thick provisioned disk runs fine without a snapshot. Once I take a snap it keeps giving me the pin-wheel ever few seconds. Even a copy of a 5gb file from an SMB share brings it to its knees with the guest responding to key-presses intermittently and the host web interface taking 5-10 seconds to fill in information when navigating around. I'm not sure what the difference is between 6.0 and 6.5, but something is very wrong here.

Anyway, worse luck with 10.13 after the bios update and ESXi upgrade. Booting from 10.13 installation iso I still cannot see the virtual disks. When I run an upgrade of the OS from 10.12.6 to 10.13 the system eventually gets to a reboot where it cannot find any boot disks and gives me the standard vmware blue ansi boot menu. At this point I boot from a 10.12 installation iso to open disk-utility and see what the status is of the disk. The 10.12 ISO sees the internal disk, but with 0 partitions, and lists it as "unformatted". Might be something going on there with APFS.

I'm probably going to end up going to fusion soon w/ me logged into the console 100% of the time to keep the vms running if I cannot figure something out.

[MrP]

FWIW, the Dec 17 ESXi 6.5 patches made the host and vm responsiveness about 50% better when any guest is running on a snapshot. It's not nearly as smooth as any other esxi host I have run with snapshots, but its mostly usable if you have the time to wait for the timeouts. Hopefully they will fix the issue with ESXi6.5 + MacPro(trashcan model) in the future for all of us who use that as a test bed.

[jracosta]

I have recently deployed a LAB for Mac VMs and was running ESXi 6.5 on MacPro (Late 2013) with a VSphere Appliance 6.5 to manage and seemed to work without issue performing a clean install on 10.12. Once I started to do the same same on 10.13 I was able to see first hand the issues reported. Found that High Sierra is supported now from the guest compatibility chart on VMware site but only explains that the APFS issue is a known problem, they have a documented work around. The fix doesn't seem to work from the test deployments I made but did happen to find to ways to get around the APFS conversion.

First workaround is to remove the virtual SATA HDD then add a virtual iSCSI controller and SCSI HDD when creating a new VM. This is not the typical Mac configuration but works to deploy VMs for testing.
1. Create a VM and customize during creation
2. Remove virtual SATA HDD
3. Add virtual iSCSI controller
4. Add virtual SCSI HDD
5. Boot to 10.13 ISO
6. Format internal disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
7. Start install

Second workaround is to have an NFS storage device assigned to your ESXi host for the creation of the new VM. The issue with the APFS conversion happens only on storage devices running VMFS5+ and virtual SSD drives. The issue states that the virtual SATA controller will see the ESXi hosts internal SSD and creates a virtual SSD drive which causes the installer to perform the APFS conversion on installation. (I preferred using this method to preserve a typical Mac hardware deployment)
1. Create a VM on NFS storage
2. Boot to 10.13 ISO
3. Format internal disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
4. Start install

Once done either VM can be configured and made to be used as templates for quick deployment. The APFS conversion is no longer an issue since it is not performing the installation and seeing an SSD to perform the conversion during a clean install. If using VSphere, VMs can be moved to different storage devices without worrying about APFS conversion.

[MrP]

@jrcosta Good information, thanks! The KB attached to the support page you linked shows the following as another way to allow upgrade without APFS conversion, although that doesn't sound like it helps one install 10.13 from scratch. Performance with snapshots still sucks under 6.5 on that hardware. It was fine under 6.0. Also,despite stating it is supported it is still not listed on the host as an available guest OS.

From: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52020

Workaround As a work around, upgrade to macOS 10.13 by modifying the VM configuration file as below: Edit the virtual machine vmx file. Add/Modify the below entry: sata0:0.virtualSSD = "FALSE" ​Save and close the vmx file. Retry the upgrade.

Compatibility statement from VMware:
https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=software&testConfig=16&productid=44496&supRel=367,&deviceCategory=software&details=1&partner=269&releases=367&operatingSystems=236&productNames=15&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc&testConfig=16

[jracosta]

@MrP Thanks for posting the solution. As mentioned I tried the recommended solution and it did not work. Tried with an exsiting VM and also a newly created VM. No issue performing the modification to the vmx file but it still performed the APFS conversion during OS installation even after option was inserted into the vmx file. If anyone can get it to work please post. I ended up using macOS 10.12 as deployed OS since it didn't show up in VSphere console. I imagine thats why it only states ESXi 6.5. I also ended up updating both ESXi and VCSA to the latest patches to see if the option came up and did not show up. May take a while before they officially support macOS 10.13 as an option in VSphere.

Link to fix:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52020

Tips for editing vmx:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1714