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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="macosxguests">
  <title>macOS Guests</title>
  <body>
    <p><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> enables you to install and execute unmodified versions of macOS and Mac OS X guests on supported host hardware. This feature is experimental and thus unsupported.</p>
    <p>Be aware of the following important issues before you try to install a macOS guest:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <p>macOS is commercial, licensed software and contains <b outputclass="bold">both license and technical restrictions</b> that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. You must understand and comply with these restrictions.</p>
        <p>In particular, Apple prohibits the installation of most versions of macOS on non-Apple hardware.</p>
        <p>These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level. macOS verifies that it is running on Apple hardware. Most DVDs that accompany Apple hardware check for the exact model. These restrictions are <i>not</i> circumvented by <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> and continue to apply.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Only CPUs that are known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, if your Intel CPU is newer than the macOS build, or if you have a non-Intel CPU, you will likely encounter a panic during bootup with an <uicontrol>Unsupported CPU</uicontrol> exception.</p>
        <p>Ensure that you use the macOS DVD that comes with your Apple hardware.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>The macOS installer expects the hard disk to be <i>partitioned</i>. So, the installer will not offer a partition selection to you. Before you can install the software successfully, start the <uicontrol>Disk Utility</uicontrol> from the <uicontrol>Tools</uicontrol> menu and partition the hard disk. Close the Disk Utility and proceed with the installation.</p>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <p>Limitations<ul>
        <li>
          <p>The graphics resolution currently defaults to 1024x768 as macOS falls back to the built-in EFI display support. See <xref href="efividmode.dita">Video Modes in EFI</xref> for more information on how to change EFI video modes.</p>
        </li>
        <li>
          <p>Depending on your system and version of macOS, you might experience guest hangs after some time. This can be fixed by turning off energy saving. Set the timeout to <uicontrol>Never </uicontrol>in the system preferences.</p>
        </li>
        <li>
          <p>By default, the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> EFI enables debug output of the macOS kernel to help you diagnose boot problems. Note that there is a lot of output and not all errors are fatal. They would also show when using a physical Apple computer. You can turn off these messages by using the following command:</p>
          <pre xml:space="preserve">$ VBoxManage setextradata <varname>VM-name</varname> "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" "  "</pre>
          <p> To revert to the previous behavior, use the following command:</p>
          <pre xml:space="preserve">$ VBoxManage setextradata <varname>VM-name</varname> "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" ""</pre>
        </li>
        <li>
          <p>It is currently not possible to start a macOS guest in safe mode by specifying the <codeph>-x</codeph> option in <codeph>VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs</codeph> extradata.</p>
        </li>
      </ul></p>
  </body>
</topic>
