MP 7,1 ESXi on Mac Pro 7,1

[SecuritySteve]

I'm posting here to hear about any success stories with installing ESXi on the Mac Pro 7,1. My work is currently waiting for the rack mount version to be available before we order, but I would like to know what steps others are taking to make ESXi work on this machine or are planning to do.

 

[chrfr]

I'm posting here to hear about any success stories with installing ESXi on the Mac Pro 7,1. My work is currently waiting for the rack mount version to be available before we order, but I would like to know what steps others are taking to make ESXi work on this machine or are planning to do.

The T2 (which the 2019 Mac Pro has) has, so far, been an insurmountable obstacle in getting ESXi to work fully on the 2018 Mac mini. As of now, internal storage on the Mini cannot be used with ESXi, and I believe Thunderbolt is also not working. With luck, Apple will be more interested in working with VMWare on getting ESXi to run on the Mac Pro, but there's a strong chance it'll be some time away, if ever, before it's fully functional.

 

[deconstruct60]

The T2 (which the 2019 Mac Pro has) has, so far, been an insurmountable obstacle in getting ESXi to work fully on the 2018 Mac mini.

is that the context where trying to get ESXi to boot from the T2drive itself? the attempt is to get to a self contained system that could fit on a rack .

The Mac Pro has other internal options . Could boot off a 32-64 GB USB thumb drive .or some other drive . dont have to engage in drama of getting to the T2 drive. Especially if it is a 256 GB drive can comfortably just avoid .

Or a bigger drama with ESXi stumbling with secure boot ? The secure boot firmware isn’t really the T2. Ships with the T2 but is not the hardware ( or firmware running on the T2 .) .

As of now, internal storage on the Mini cannot be used with ESXi, and I believe Thunderbolt is also not working. With luck, Apple will be more interested in working with VMWare on getting ESXi to run on the Mac Pro, but there's a strong chance it'll be some time away, if ever, before it's fully functional.

Don’t necessarily need the T2 drive. The Mini only has one internal drive. I don’t think Apple is going to br more interested with the Mac Pro because they are providing a wide variety of alternatives internally.

Non macOS unlocking the storage of T2 drive probably won’t change much as a priority.

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

Yeah I would wait till the 7,1 is on the HCL for VMware, there shouldn't be much reason that the PCIE/Processor etc wouldn't work. You would have to use external storage or maybe you could boot off a USB stick stuck inside the Pro in that upper right hand corner where you would put the SATA drive cage.

But if this is for production then waiting for it to be on the HCL would be best so you can get support from VMware if things go sideways.

I'll be converting my 5,1 into a VMware ESXI 6.0 box most likely to replace the 1,1 that I've got currently doing that duty.

 

[startergo]

Yeah I would wait till the 7,1 is on the HCL for VMware, there shouldn't be much reason that the PCIE/Processor etc wouldn't work. You would have to use external storage or maybe you could boot off a USB stick stuck inside the Pro in that upper right hand corner where you would put the SATA drive cage.

But if this is for production then waiting for it to be on the HCL would be best so you can get support from VMware if things go sideways.

I'll be converting my 5,1 into a VMware ESXI 6.0 box most likely to replace the 1,1 that I've got currently doing that duty.

How are the internal fans controlled in ESXI configuration? Any option to control fans based on sensor temperature like MFC?

 

[deconstruct60]

How are the internal fans controlled in ESXI configuration? Any option to control fans based on sensor temperature like MFC?

Technically, the T2 is directly charged with running the fans. If some info is being relayed from the MPX modules and other internal sensors to the T2 to make the adjustments then that could be an issue. However, there is already substantially large firmware coupled to a decent sized processor that is in direct control.

if MFC s Mac Fan Control :
".. Only on macs without the modern T2 chip. ..."
https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control

At some point the future T-series chip will take over the custom SMC and PMIC duties for the Mac. It already has a chunk of SMC duties. Now that Apple acquired their PMIC design team that is probably going to be merged in the future too.

 

[SecuritySteve]

Looks like deliveries are happening today. Here's hoping someone is willing to test trying to put it on external boot / internal PCIE expansion card boot.

 

[mikeboss]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1206095612632018945

 

[SecuritySteve]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1206095612632018945

Fantastic!!!
[automerge]1576527230[/automerge]
Upon closer examination, it looks like it's just the installer that he posted, not the actual ESXi running. Still many questions to be asked. But closer!

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

I'm getting mine tomorrow. I've got a spare card that I can toss in for a test. Once I get it all put together and migrated over to it I'll give it a go with ESXi 6.7 and my home lab.

 

[SecuritySteve]

I'm getting mine tomorrow. I've got a spare card that I can toss in for a test. Once I get it all put together and migrated over to it I'll give it a go with ESXi 6.7 and my home lab.

Eagerly awaiting these results.

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

Still waiting for the box to show up at the front door, it's out for delivery! Come on UPS get a move on!

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

@SecuritySteve Ok so had to use Rufus on a Win10 VM to create the bootable USB stick as the tools on the mac were just not doing it and making it bootable.

Was able to boot ESXi was displaying on my 4k display then would go black. Disconnected it and I could get further in the install process but it is complaining about there not being any NIC Cards attached, So it looks like there are no drivers in the standard ESXi 6.7 update 3 release.

Like I said probably best to wait till its on the HCL with VMware. I might be possible to add in drivers to the installer ISO but I'm not going to go that far today.

Sorry for the bad news.

 

[Mago]

Anyone trying to configure an instance with n cores and direct control on done GPU, or even mix GPU from nVidia (as yo run a local cuda GPU Server, and a macOS instance with access to AMD GPU and ee)

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

Anyone trying to configure an instance with n cores and direct control on done GPU, or even mix GPU from nVidia (as yo run a local cuda GPU Server, and a macOS instance with access to AMD GPU and ee)

There should be no reason you couldn't load a quadro in there and have it work with VMware once the ESXi OS is loaded then you would have to do a PCI pass thru, which until we can load ESXi we won't know how the 7,1 is going to handle that.

So to answer your question in theory yes it should work but until we can load it up and try who knows.

 

[SecuritySteve]

@SecuritySteve Ok so had to use Rufus on a Win10 VM to create the bootable USB stick as the tools on the mac were just not doing it and making it bootable.

Was able to boot ESXi was displaying on my 4k display then would go black. Disconnected it and I could get further in the install process but it is complaining about there not being any NIC Cards attached, So it looks like there are no drivers in the standard ESXi 6.7 update 3 release.

View attachment 884007

Like I said probably best to wait till its on the HCL with VMware. I might be possible to add in drivers to the installer ISO but I'm not going to go that far today.

Sorry for the bad news.

Hey man, thanks for the information. I'm just worried they will not be adding it to the HCL because of the T2 chip, and lack of interest in just supporting storage that isn't the base Apple SSDs.

 

[Mago]

This may help

ESXi on the new 2018 Apple Mac Mini

Thanks to the Green Mini Host (Apple Mac Mini hosting and collocation provider) who were the first to publicly confirm that latest release of ESXi (6.7 Update 1) works on the recently announced 201…

www.virtuallyghetto.com

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

@Mago I'll give that a try and see if I can get it installed, thanks for the heads up on that site.

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

No joy with the modified installer, pink screen o' death

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Regarding officially unsupported (but should still work) platforms with ESXi, I haven't had much success.

 

[Quu]

May I ask a question. Are you wanting to run ESXi on the Mac Pro for licensing reasons, specifically Apples rule about only allowing macOS to be virtuliaised on real Apple Macintoshes?

I mean that's the only reason I can think of why you would want to do this considering the systems heft price tag compared to a server designed specifically for virtualisation.

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

May I ask a question. Are you wanting to run ESXi on the Mac Pro for licensing reasons, specifically Apples rule about only allowing macOS to be virtuliaised on real Apple Macintoshes?

I mean that's the only reason I can think of why you would want to do this considering the systems heft price tag compared to a server designed specifically for virtualisation.

I have been running one at work on a Mac mini using Sonnets xMac Mini Server cases.

Sonnet Technologies

It was great I was able to have two caching servers for apple store apps and updates etc one internal and one on our free wifi for public. With still enough juice for two installs of OSX for the helpdesk techs to use to do apple configurator stuff with our staff iPhones.

I would love to be able to do this again with the new mac mini but it doesn't seem to be in the cards till Apple and VMware get on the same page with the T2 chip.


I plan on turning my old 5,1 in to another lab machine for my place here using VMUG advantage. If you haven't heard about it it's about 200 a year and you get full access to all VMware's software for non production purposes.

 

[SecuritySteve]

May I ask a question. Are you wanting to run ESXi on the Mac Pro for licensing reasons, specifically Apples rule about only allowing macOS to be virtuliaised on real Apple Macintoshes?

I mean that's the only reason I can think of why you would want to do this considering the systems heft price tag compared to a server designed specifically for virtualisation.

Trouble is my situation is a production and enterprise environment. We can't do anything legally shady.

 

[lamw]

Hi Folks -

@CNDCodewarrior Thanks for the additional testing of ESXi on new 2019 Mac Pro. I was really hoping the on-board NICs would be similiar to those of the 2018 Mac Mini and the screenshot that Mike B took on Twitter was mainly due to his monitor. Since we don't have the new system (just yet), would you mind generating a support bundle (switch to console using ALT+FT1) and then login with root (no password) and then run "vm-support"

Once the bundle has completed, what you can do is simply cp the file directly into the USB key (which has the ESXi installer). This is one trick I use to grab support bundle/files. Once you've got it on the USB Key, you can simply copy it off back to your system. Feel free to DM privately

 

[CNDCodewarrior]

Hi Folks -

@CNDCodewarrior Thanks for the additional testing of ESXi on new 2019 Mac Pro. I was really hoping the on-board NICs would be similiar to those of the 2018 Mac Mini and the screenshot that Mike B took on Twitter was mainly due to his monitor. Since we don't have the new system (just yet), would you mind generating a support bundle (switch to console using ALT+FT1) and then login with root (no password) and then run "vm-support"

Once the bundle has completed, what you can do is simply cp the file directly into the USB key (which has the ESXi installer). This is one trick I use to grab support bundle/files. Once you've got it on the USB Key, you can simply copy it off back to your system. Feel free to DM privately

I’ll try to get to that today for you. Glad to be of help.