ESXi on a Mac Pro?

[sim667]

Has anyone had any experience of doing this? Particularly with OSX server?

We want to virtualise OSX server, Linux and windows side by side on a Mac Pro. OS X server to manage our MacBook pro's (backups/deployments/wikis etc) and windows and Linux as test environments.

We also want to be able to VPN into all of this, so I guess that would mean moving the vpn server to a router in front of the Mac Pro rather than the one in OS X server itself.

 

[DNComputers]

I have this on a Mac Pro 5,1 (also used to have it on a 4,1 with no issues)

Running ESXi 5.5, I have one OSX VM (Yosemite Server), but have powered up a second on occasion. I've read you can only run two (licensing?), but I don't think ESXi stops you from doing this. I run this for deploystudio, since new versions tend to break things, I love being able to snapshot, try the upgrade, then go back if it didn't work as planned.
I also have a few Linux VMs and a Windows Server 2008 VM. No issues running a mix like that.

I was not able to get the Apple RAID card to work, I had a lot of trouble getting RAID, I ended up buying an IBM 46M0918 M5014. Setting it up on a PC (no way to get to the configuration from a Mac) then put it back in the Mac. Setup ESXi to monitor the status. Initially I used 2006 Mac Pro trays with the drives in backwards and left the side off, adding another power supply for the drives. This worked fine, but I eventually switched to an separate enclosure

For the VPN, I'm sure you could get a VPN VM that you could connect to, maybe even put the other VMs behind it, if that's what you wanted. I have not looked into doing this.

 

[sim667]

I have this on a Mac Pro 5,1 (also used to have it on a 4,1 with no issues)

Running ESXi 5.5, I have one OSX VM (Yosemite Server), but have powered up a second on occasion. I've read you can only run two (licensing?), but I don't think ESXi stops you from doing this. I run this for deploystudio, since new versions tend to break things, I love being able to snapshot, try the upgrade, then go back if it didn't work as planned.
I also have a few Linux VMs and a Windows Server 2008 VM. No issues running a mix like that.

I was not able to get the Apple RAID card to work, I had a lot of trouble getting RAID, I ended up buying an IBM 46M0918 M5014. Setting it up on a PC (no way to get to the configuration from a Mac) then put it back in the Mac. Setup ESXi to monitor the status. Initially I used 2006 Mac Pro trays with the drives in backwards and left the side off, adding another power supply for the drives. This worked fine, but I eventually switched to an separate enclosure

For the VPN, I'm sure you could get a VPN VM that you could connect to, maybe even put the other VMs behind it, if that's what you wanted. I have not looked into doing this.

Ah thanks for the info.

So we wouldn't be planning on running two OSX VM's, just the one. I imagine we would want to run one fedora VM (probably headless), and one windows VM too..... so it looks like we'd be fine doing that.

We're actually going to buy a new Mac pro to do it on anyway, and you can only attach storage externally, so using a RAID enclosure for our storage would negate any issue of RAID problems at a firmware level on OSX.

The VPN remains the only real worry, but I think we're going to have to at least buy a router anyway, so we may as well just get one with the VPN server built in.....

 

[neomorpheus]

I have this on a Mac Pro 5,1 (also used to have it on a 4,1 with no issues)

Running ESXi 5.5, I have one OSX VM (Yosemite Server), but have powered up a second on occasion. I've read you can only run two (licensing?), but I don't think ESXi stops you from doing this. I run this for deploystudio, since new versions tend to break things, I love being able to snapshot, try the upgrade, then go back if it didn't work as planned.
I also have a few Linux VMs and a Windows Server 2008 VM. No issues running a mix like that.

I was not able to get the Apple RAID card to work, I had a lot of trouble getting RAID, I ended up buying an IBM 46M0918 M5014. Setting it up on a PC (no way to get to the configuration from a Mac) then put it back in the Mac. Setup ESXi to monitor the status. Initially I used 2006 Mac Pro trays with the drives in backwards and left the side off, adding another power supply for the drives. This worked fine, but I eventually switched to an separate enclosure

For the VPN, I'm sure you could get a VPN VM that you could connect to, maybe even put the other VMs behind it, if that's what you wanted. I have not looked into doing this.

Question, can it also run a regular Yosemite install?

 

[DNComputers]

Question, can it also run a regular Yosemite install?

You have to install Yosemite, then install server from the App store. There wasn't any kind of warning when running Yosemite before installing Server. You might want to double check the license requirements for Yosemite to make sure this is acceptable, but as far as I can tell, ESXi does not prevent you from doing this. As I read it, you're okay, unless you're using it for commercial use not related to software development. If so, you must purchase server.

(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use

 

[neomorpheus]

You have to install Yosemite, then install server from the App store. There wasn't any kind of warning when running Yosemite before installing Server. You might want to double check the license requirements for Yosemite to make sure this is acceptable, but as far as I can tell, ESXi does not prevent you from doing this. As I read it, you're okay, unless you're using it for commercial use not related to software development. If so, you must purchase server.

(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use

Since I read that ESXi supports VT-d on this Mac Pro, I was thinking in installing it, then install Yosemite, Windows 10 and a couple of others and assign a good video card to Windows, so i can stream my games to my other devices.