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ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

  • 1.  ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Sep 02, 2011 01:50 AM

    Hi all, since version 5 of ESXi has been released, I've been searching around whether it will install on a Mac Mini Server (2011 model).

    I know the defunct Xserve is the only Apple hardware officially supported, but the Mac Mini would be gold for a Dev environment at home.

    ESXi 4.1 I know definitely had issues with the Mac Mini, and have only found posts elsewhere mentioning "mixed reports" of getting ESXi 5 running.

    Has anybody here tried this? I'd buy one today if i knew it would work.

    Cheers



  • 2.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Sep 08, 2011 03:44 PM

    Unfortunately ESXi 5.0 does not work on a Mac mini (2011 server i7 quad-core). The ethernet does not work.

    Purchased a Macmini5,3 yesterday and tried to install ESXi 5.0 on it. My friend who builds/administers ESXi boxes (as runs it on plenty of unsupported configurations) and I were able to boot ESXi via a USB flash drive, but could not get TCP/IP working over the ethernet.

    It fully booted as per (http://gregcarriger.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/turn-your-laptop-into-an-esxi-5-0-host/). Things looked promising - keyboard was working, and we could see the hard drives in the logs, but we ultimately could not ping the box, and obviously couldn't connect to it using ESXi client.

    TCP/IP would not run on it - it did not pick up an IP address even though a DHCP server was running on our network. Manually setting the IP address did not work either. We even set up an ARP route to try to get any packets to the box. All without luck.

    We dug around to find info on the Broadcom 57765 ethernet (also in Macmini5,1, and I think the 2010 Mac mini), and confirmed it was recognized by the tg3 driver. Aside from seeing its MAC address (and confirming it was up by checking into the stats on the managed switch). We were even able to force speed/duplex settings (i.e. 10 half duplex) and saw it reflected on the managed switch. But at no point could we get packets on/off the interface.



  • 3.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Nov 04, 2011 06:24 PM

    Have you tried doing this to get round the NIC driver issue?

    http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1540&hilit=mac

    Good luck let us know if you have any progress...



  • 4.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 05, 2012 01:49 AM

    I have managed to successfully install esxi 5 on tte new mac mini server 2011.  i installed refit on the mac mini. i have the primary drive booting too mac os server where refit is installed. i then installed a brand new 1 tb above the 500gb mac mini  server.  i used a program called esxi customiser

    http://v-front.blogspot.com/p/esxi-customizer.html#download. i then went onto this website ( http://vm-help.com/esx40i/customize_oem_tgz.php)  and downloaded the customised oem.tgz called " Adds Broadcom 5761 support (14e4:1681)" the rest is self explanatory once you download program. One slight problem when i successfully installed esxi5 Refit will not allow it to boot, asking for a boot disk. but if i disconnect the connector from the first hard drive on the mac mini, esxi will boot. currently looking for a better boot manager program, so i dont have to keep disconnecting first drive. really pleased with my work and i think i might be the first person too have done this, as cannott find anybody else who on google who has succesfully done this.



  • 5.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 06, 2012 02:36 PM

    Congrats! This is awesome.  I think you are the only person who reported a fully working ESXi on Mac Mini.  I have a few questions for you.

    Did you have a problem with getting the keyboard to work?  There are reports stating that the keyboard driver is also an issue.

    Secondly, did you try and install ESXi natively without dual boot/refit to see if you could get over the boot issue?  Possibly USB install?

    I need to get this going also and any further insight would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks



  • 6.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 12, 2012 05:14 PM

    Hi there,

    Wondering if you can shed a little more detail on the process you used for the installation. I generally use the following procedure for creating my ESXi installs on USB keys with regular servers: http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/01/08/creating-a-bootable-esxi-usb-stick-on-mac-os-x/. This process eliminates the installation phase and results in a bootable ESXi volume that you just need to configure IP and networking.

    I was also wondering if you were booting the Mac Mini off of an external USB key or whether you did a full install on one of the internal drives?



  • 7.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 25, 2012 07:00 PM

    Hi dhealys,

    I plan to install ESXi 5 on MAC mini too. The configuration is  RAM 8 GB, 2 discs (256 GB Solid State, 750 GB SATA).
    I want to use it for max. 3 VM's - one of them  - the biggest one: WIN SBS 2011 as
    Exchange-, DNS-, DHCP-Server and Domain Controler for max 5 Clients. The Data will be on a NAS.

    The plan was to install ESXi 5 on the solid state disk and the VM's on the second SATA disc.

    Did you make experience with your ESXi 5 installation up to know? What about the performance?

    It would be nice, if I could participate in your know how. Thanks a lot!



  • 8.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 15, 2012 08:56 AM

    After reading this and other feedback, we were able to get the Mac Mini 2011 (5,3) working with VMware ESXi 5.  The one thing that was key was the Broadcom NIC driver needed to be updated and its not included on the VMware ISO, but it's available.  You can read the step by step instructions on our website:

    http://paraguin.com/2012/01/10/the-mac-mini-vmware-esxi-5-server-part-2-installation/

    Let us know your feedback if this helps you as we were able to do it to two of the Mac Mini 2011 Quad Core i7 with 2 hard drives.  A couple items to note is that we used a super drive since it didn't require any modifications to the VMware ISO file.  Then the second item is that the Mac Mini servers are software raid so you will end up with two hard drives and should have a good backup strategy for your VMs.



  • 9.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 17, 2012 05:17 PM

    I attempted your method using on a Mac Mini 2010 with success also.  I had to install ESXi on a USB stick in order to get it to work because the USB hub driver does not work.  It looks like Apple is using a different hardware type for their USB hub on the newer models?

    Thanks for finding the magic NIC driver.



  • 10.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jan 17, 2012 11:15 PM

    With Regards the  installation of esxi 5 on mac mini,  ive outline the steps below, there were initial problem with getting ethernet working, i have now fixed this. here is an outline of steps so nothing is missed.

    Step 1: My Mac Mini Server 2011 came with two 500gb hard drives. i Replaced one hard drive with a 1tb drive and left one 500gb in the bottom half of the mac mini, as i did not want to tear apart mac mini. the 1 tb hard will be were esxi 5 will be installed and mac server hard drive will remain as the primary drive.

    Step 2; Installed Refit on 500gb mac Server hard drive.  to allow easy booting off usb and allow esxi 5 to be booted from internal hard drive

    Step 3: I downloaded the esxi iso image and the broadcom driver which was hard to find. the broadcom driver can be found at the following.

    http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esxi50_broadcom_tg3_3_120h_v50_2/dHRAYnRAd2piZHAlZA==

    unzip the file and place the bundle on your hard drive.

    Step 4

    i download  a program called esxi customiser, to customise installation.
    http://v-front.blogspot.com/p/esxi-customizer.html#download.

    Step 5

    Run esxi customiser, and browse to esxi5 iso and the broadcom bundle driver.

    Step 6

    Download Unibooting and browse to new customised image and load onto usb stick

    thats it, quickest and  most simplest way to do this, and now you have coolest esx box in world, all done in less than 5 minutes.



  • 11.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011



  • 12.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Feb 08, 2012 02:25 AM

    Quite alot of progress since I first posted this.

    One question though, if you goto https://[esxi5-hostname]/mob/?moid=ha-host&doPath=hardware is the smcPresent value equal to true?

    If so, think I'll be buying one tomorrow.



  • 13.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Feb 08, 2012 02:48 AM

    It does show up as true.  I also had a VMware rep inform me that 10.7.2 will be supported in ESXi 5 Update 1 since our testing showed that 10.7.0 and 10.7.1 works and an iPhone can be synced to iTunes through the vSphere client as long as you upgrade iTunes and not the rest of OS X.  You can see from the blog that many people have reported success with the information shared among all those part of the community.

    http://paraguin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/smcPresent.gif

    http://paraguin.com/2012/01/17/os-x-on-a-mac-mini-with-vmware-esxi-5/



  • 14.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jun 10, 2012 01:26 PM

    I have it installed and working well for about a month, but now it's going offline. Read the entire post here: http://virtualizationinformation.com/?p=1423



  • 15.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jun 18, 2012 03:04 PM

    Shannon,

    One of my Mac Mini's has gone offline twice since I set it up last month.  Usually, I can just unplug/plug the NIC cable and it's good to go again.  I might try your fix of changing from auto negotiate to full/1000.

    BTW, I swapped out the 2 500GB drives for 120GB OCZ Agility 3's...and the box runs much cooler...not to mention the drives are faster.  I'll eventually move all of my VMs over to a QNAP SAN/NAS when it comes in from Newegg this Wednesday.

    Chris



  • 16.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jun 18, 2012 10:25 PM

    I like the QNAP SAN/NAS. That setup should keep the MM much cooler as you say.



  • 17.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jun 18, 2012 10:36 PM

    Well, the QNAP doesn't come with drives...but I'll be taking the 4x 500GB drives out of the 2 Mac Mini's...and using them in the QNAP.  ESXi5 recognized the OCZ SSD drives...and I could use some of their space for Host cache...if I really started pushing/exceeding the 16BG of RAM in them.

    What a great setup!  I read that the vSamurai was trying to get this setup as a presentation at VMworld.  I hope he gets approved.  I'll be there again this year.  Hope to see you if you can make it.

    Chris



  • 18.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Feb 20, 2012 04:39 PM

    I noticed that ESXi 5 seems to definitely be possible on Mac Mini 2010 and 2011 models.  Does anyone have any indication of whether it will work on a Mac Mini early/late 2009 model?  Not sure how different the innards are, but if it will work, I will definitely be scouring for 2009 or newer used/refurb Mac Minis to put together a cluster.



  • 19.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 10, 2012 04:52 PM

    ESXi 5.0 Update 1 w/broadcom driver patch works fine on Mac Mini Server 2011 5,3 (A1347) - http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/05/thats-so-cool-running-esxi-5-on-apple.html



  • 20.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Jun 10, 2012 04:55 PM

    Thanks. I'm going to check my configuration and make sure it matches. I'll post the results if its different.



  • 21.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Aug 17, 2012 08:59 PM

    Hi,

    just installed esxi 5 update 1 on my mac mini server flawlessly. Just one question: I noticed there is no audio device emulation for the virtual machines, is anyone using it ? I thought being virtualized it shouldn't be a problem if esxi does not recognize the mac mini audio hardware



  • 22.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Oct 05, 2012 07:20 PM

    Hopefully some of you folks running ESXi on the Mac Mini are still watching this thread…

    I’ve had ESXi 5.0, and now 5.1 running on my Mac Mini for about 6 months now. The only problem I’ve seen is very serious….the occasional purple screen of death, or PSOD. The system will run flawlessly for weeks or months, but if it’s pushed hard and the CPU’s ramp up, it will get a PSOD.

    Here are parts of the PSOD error:
    PCPU 0 locked up. Failed to ack TLB invalidate (total of 1 locked up, PCPU(s): 0).
    *PCPU5:2805/hostd-worker

    VMware’s KB articles don’t help me out too much. Any suggestions? Could this be a heat issue?



  • 23.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Oct 09, 2012 04:38 PM

    Has anyone figured out if its possible to Slip-Stream USB Ethernet Drivers into ESXi5 Installs.. Similar to the BroadCom SlipStream?

    Also, are there 16gb SO-DIMMS out yet?  I searched around and didnt see anything.. Was hoping for 32gb Ram.



  • 24.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Oct 22, 2012 08:30 PM

    oturn wrote:

    Hopefully some of you folks running ESXi on the Mac Mini are still watching this thread…

    I’ve had ESXi 5.0, and now 5.1 running on my Mac Mini for about 6 months now. The only problem I’ve seen is very serious….the occasional purple screen of death, or PSOD. The system will run flawlessly for weeks or months, but if it’s pushed hard and the CPU’s ramp up, it will get a PSOD.

    Here are parts of the PSOD error:
    PCPU 0 locked up. Failed to ack TLB invalidate (total of 1 locked up, PCPU(s): 0).
    *PCPU5:2805/hostd-worker

    VMware’s KB articles don’t help me out too much. Any suggestions? Could this be a heat issue?

    Never run into it but following the KBs on this , http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1020214 , it looks like a software or maybe cpu microcode issue. There are some references to broadcom network drivers (old times from ESX 3.5) but still suspicious since that's what the macmini uses. TLB is related to hardware assisted virtualization though. I couldn't find if Core I7 is on the HCL for VMware. Looking at the Macmini5,3 it uses Intel Core i7-2635QM. Maybe an updated bios would help if such exist?

    Edit:

    An update to my post. When using Image builder to create a new ISO for my macmini I noticed there is a newer driver for the broadcom NIC (NetExtreme I). I would update it to see if it helps the PSOD problem. There are quite a lot of fixes compared earlier versions.

    VMware ESXi 5.0 Driver CD for Broadcom NetXtreme I Gigabit Ethernet including support for 5717/5718/5719/5720

    version: 3.124c.v50.1
    date: 2012-09-18
    filename: tg3-3.124c.v50.1-841079.zip

    Direct link: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI50-Broadcom-tg3-3124cv501&productId=229

    VMware driver page: http://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_0#drivers_tools



  • 25.  RE: ESXi 5 on a Mac Mini 2011

    Posted Dec 29, 2012 05:05 PM

    The new driver has kept my servers stable.  Before, they would PSOD almost daily. 

    Chris