macOS virtual machine from scratch (August 6, 2023)

macos-guest-virtualbox.sh is a Bash script for creating Catalina (10.15), Mojave (10.14), and High Sierra (10.13) guests on VirtualBox on Windows, Linux, and macOS hosts from scratch

The script creates a VirtualBox guest macOS virtual machine with unmodified macOS installation files downloaded directly from Apple servers. See the readme file for more information.

Known issues

• Guest macOS boot process hangs on “LoadKernelFromStream”, “EndRandomSeed”, or "EXITBS" - see documentation regarding VirtualBox CPU profiles and CPUID settings.
• Hosts with CPUs released in 2020 and later may fail to start or complete the installer, and may require manually adjusting the CPUID settings.
• The script does not verify file integrity for the downloaded installation files.

Dependencies

The following dependencies should be available through a package manager:
bash coreutils gzip unzip wget xxd dmg2img virtualbox

The following optional packages provide optical character recognition that reduces the required interaction with the script:
tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng

Supported versions:

• VirtualBox ≥ 6.1.6, though versions as low as 5.2 may work.
• GNU Bash ≥ 4.3, GNU coreutils ≥ 8.22, GNU gzip ≥ 1.5, Info-ZIP unzip ≥ v6.0, GNU wget ≥ 1.14, xxd with -e little endian support, dmg2img ≥ 1.6.5, tesseract-ocr ≥ 4

0.78.1 (January 13, 2020)

This is an old release of the script. Please use the latest version of the script.

The script creates a VirtualBox guest macOS virtual machine with unmodified macOS installation files downloaded directly from Apple servers. See the readme file for more information.

Known issues

• Guest macOS Catalina requires VirtualBox 6.1.4 or higher
• Guest macOS boot process hangs on “LoadKernelFromStream” and “EndRandomSeed”
• VirtualBox 6.1 NVRAM driver fails; no connectivity for iMessage, iCloud

Dependencies

• VirtualBox≥6.0 with Extension Pack
• Bash≥4.3 (GNU variant; run on Windows through Cygwin or WSL)
• coreutils (GNU variant; install through package manager)
• unzip(install through package manager)
• wget (install through package manager)
• dmg2img (install through package manager on Linux, macOS, or WSL; let the script download it automatically on Cygwin)

0.63.0 (May 31, 2019)

This is an old release of the script. Please use the latest version of the script.

The script creates a VirtualBox guest macOS Mojave 10.14 virtual machine with unmodified macOS installation files downloaded directly from Apple servers. See the readme file for more information.

Known issues

• Guest macOS boot process hangs on “LoadKernelFromStream” and “EndRandomSeed”
• Guest installation hangs on macOS hosts

Dependencies

• VirtualBox≥5.2 with Extension Pack
• Bash≥4 (run on Windows through Cygwin or WSL)
• coreutils, unzip, wget (install through package manager)
• dmg2img (install through package manager on Linux or WSL; let the script download it automatically on Cygwin)