Vieux on linux with QEMU + KVM

Requirements:

• Board with support for AMD-V or VT-x, as well as iommu (VT-d)
• QEMU 3.x or higher

You do not need any additional hardware, unless you don't have USB 2.0 ports or separate on-board controllers.

Installing MacOS on QEMU + KVM

To install MacOS in QEMU + KVM just follow the instruction here.

The only I can suggest is to install Mojave due most stable work with Vieux.

Prepairing for USB passthrough

Enable BIOS Features

Boot into your firmware settings, and turn on AMD-V/VT-x, as well as iommu (also called AMD-Vi, VT-d, or SR-IOV).

Enable Kernel Features

The iommu kernel module is not enabled by default, but you can enable it on boot by passing the following flags to the kernel.

AMD

iommu=pt amd_iommu=on

Intel

iommu=pt intel_iommu=on

To do this permanently, you can add it to your bootloader. For example, if you are using GRUB, edit /etc/default/grub and add the previous lines to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT section, then run sudo update-grub (or sudo grub-mkconfig on some systems) and reboot.

Getting IOMMU devices

./lsiommu.sh (included in this repo). If successful, you will get list of PCIe devices and their IOMMU groups. If there is no output, double check BIOS settings. To get only USB devices ./lsiomu | grep -i USB As an example:

IOMMU Group 4 00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 9 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Controller [8086:8ca1]

Some groups contain more than one device. Look for an USB controller in its own group and note the BDF ID (00:14.0 in this example) and the PCI ID (8086:8ca1 in this example).

Installing driverctl

Move to your installed MacOS folder and run:

git clone https://gitlab.com/driverctl/driverctl.git

Setting up launch script

Move USBmacOS.sh (included in this repo) to your installed MacOS folder,

Open it with an editor and replace BDF=0000:XX:XX.X with BDF ID from earlier.

Attaching USB's to MacOS

Add the following to the end of basic.sh and replace host=XX:XX.X with the BDF ID from earlier.

    -device pcie-root-port,bus=pcie.0,multifunction=on,port=1,chassis=1,id=port.1 \
    -device vfio-pci,host=XX:XX.X,bus=port.1 \

Pre-running (Optional)

WARNING: If you have only one group of ports, after running MacOS all your USB devices may become unavailable in linux, and will only work in MacOS inside QEMU. Because of no input your linux host's screen may go off and only reboot will help. So I suggest to disable screen timeout in settings of your DE or to run these commands:

For X server:

xset -dpms

xset s off

If you shutdown from booted MacOS properly with QEMU exiting, usb ports will become normal.

Runing MacOS

sudo ./USBmacOS.

You should be able to connect your IOS device to the assigned ports and itunes must recognize your device. Then you can setup and run Vieux there by its guide for MacOS

Troubleshooting

Please ensure all devices within the iommu_group are bound to their vfio bus driver.

The USB controller you selected is in a group with more than one device, so add same group device's BDF ID and PCI ID to rebind.sh (if there are more than 1 just clone rebind.sh file) and then run it (them):

sudo ./rebind.sh (included in this repo).

or use an ACS patch (for advanced users).

iommu doesn't work properly when enabled in BIOS

Update your BIOS if possible, older boards may have issues with early implementations.

Personally tested devices

• DISTRO: Arch linux, ipad air(WI-FI) IOS 12.0 -> IOS 10.3.3
• DISTRO: Arch linux, iphone 4s IOS 9.3.5 -> IOS 6.1.3

Thanks and sources

downthecrop for passthrough USB guide

foxlet for macOS in QEMU + KVM and also passthrough USB guide