VM's in a Silicon world.....anyone get it working?

[roiegat]

So in the past I've used a mac mini running VMware Fusion 12 and creating images for everything from Catalina to Ventura.  I can even test our Automated Device Enrollment which is great since we can record it to teach people about it.

As we're moving to a Silicon chip world I've been trying to find a solution to do this on a Silicon machine.  I've tried testing both VMware Fusion Technical Preview and even the latest version of Parallels...nothing seems to work as well as an intel machine. 

I know the world is changing and VM vendors are trying to catch up.  But has anyone figured a good VM solution for Silicon that will let you adjust the host to input ADE stats like hw.model and serial numbers?

[JamesSimpson]

I have used UTM for the virtual boxes. I haven't run into any issues yet, but keep in mind that I've only been using UTM for about a month or so. 

[roiegat]

Have you gotten UTM to work with ADE/ABM on a silicon machine?

[KyleEricson]

Sorry to be share the bad news but these options are currently not supported on Apple Silicon. If you want to test ADE/ABM get an Intel Mac. You could pick up a Mac mini or 2013 Mac Pro and do Parallels or Esxi.

[roiegat]

Yeah currently using a Mac mini although with VMWare Fusion right now, didn't have much luck with Parallels.  But they are starting to retire our intel machines so wanted to try to stay a step ahead.

[jamf-42]

don't suppose you managed to get ESXi to work with T2 devices and making storage visible?

My 2012 Mac Mini won't run macOS13 (officially) .. and running VMware Fusion + macOS seems a waste of resource.. but thats were I'm at with 2019 MB Pro / Mac Mini.

And yes as per OP, not being able to test workflow from ABM on silicon is... a problem..

[AJPinto]

Unfortunately this avenue is dead. Apple unapologetically killed macOS VMs being useful for MDM testing.

• VMWare functionally gave up on MacOS until last summer, but last I checked their Fusion client was still in Beta for MacOS Guests on Apple Silicon.
• Parallels unimpressed me massively with Apple Silicon, to the point where I canceled our contact with them.

MacOS VM's are in a really bad place right now. Since no paid software has been worth the flip, I have been using Virtual Buddy. Its fairly basic, but its free and meets my needs.

GitHub - insidegui/VirtualBuddy: Virtualize macOS 12 and later on Apple Silicon

[KyleEricson]

Apple first in Enterprise......🙁

[AJPinto]

First in what list? Apple is first on my list of most annoying platforms to manage for enterprise if that counts.

[KyleEricson]

Apple's own self proclaimed list ha ha

[thefritz02]

While not exactly a good substitute for the usefulness of a VM, using the Wipe mdm command on an M1 Mac will automatically reboot the system into recovery, have you activate it and get you back to a clean build in 2-3 minutes on average (in my testing at least).  So from a time savings standpoint, it's not as good as simply snapping a VM back, but it's much better than having to reinstall the OS from a USB or download it every time the machine gets wiped like with the Intel Macs.  

It's very useful for testing our enrollment process and if a snag is hit, we can simply fix the snag, send the MDM wipe command and be back testing it again in a few minutes.