macOS KVM

Background

The purpose of this repository is to share my personalized (i.e. cleaned up, streamlined) QEMU KVM Hackintosh configuration using libvirt and OpenCore. This is an updated snapshot of what I am currently running on my relatively simple mini-ITX build.

Like many people, I began with general purpose KVM Hackintosh repositories such as:

kholia/OSX-KVM: Run macOS on QEMU/KVM. With OpenCore + Big Sur support now! Only commercial (paid) support is available.
foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM: Tools to set up a quick macOS VM in QEMU, accelerated by KVM.

However, in trying to be as universal as possible, these prebuilt options leave you with a lot of extra configuration that will not be applicable to any particular setup. This also makes it more difficult to maintain the build, and can lead to a slower and overall less stable setup.

I kept reading/learning, eventually coming across some of the excellent more targeted resources out there:

** Hackintosh ** Tips to make a bare metal MacOS - VM Engine (KVM) - Unraid
macOS / Hackintosh – Nicholas Sherlock
Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore: Opencore Configuration of KVM Hackintosh with tweaks
Pavo-IM/Proxintosh: MacOS install using Proxmox on AMD system with all system components passthrough to MacOS

Starting from my initial bloated configuration, I have slowly been able to trim down the unneeded components, toward the goal of maintaining the bare minimum configuration sufficient to achieve a functional build. As such, this configuration will not work on your system out of the box. Instead, it is here to show examples of the possible changes you might explore for your own rig.

Hardware info

johncolby's Completed Build - Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core, M1 Mini ITX Tower - PCPartPicker

Ubuntu linux host details

❯ inxi -Faz
System:    Kernel: 5.8.0-28-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.8.0-28-generic root=/dev/mapper/vgubuntu-root ro quiet splash amd_iommu=on
           iommu=pt vt.handoff=7
           Console: tty 0 dm: GDM3 3.36.3 Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: B550I AORUS PRO AX v: x.x serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC.
           v: F13g date: 03/25/2021
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen family: 17 (23) model-id: 71 (113)
           stepping: N/A microcode: 8701021 L2 cache: 3072 KiB
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 86237
           Speed: 2467 MHz min/max: 2200/3600 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2762 2: 2478 3: 2195 4: 2195
           5: 1863 6: 2196 7: 2196 8: 2196 9: 2157 10: 2722 11: 1862 12: 2193
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected
           Type: mds status: Not affected
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
           Type: srbds status: Not affected
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT / 5700/5700 XT]
           vendor: Sapphire Limited driver: vfio-pci v: 0.2 bus ID: 09:00.0 chip ID: 1002:731f
           Display: server: X.org 1.20.9 driver: ati,fbdev unloaded: modesetting,radeon,vesa tty: 124x8
           Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display
Audio:     Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 HDMI Audio driver: vfio-pci v: 0.2 bus ID: 09:00.1
           chip ID: 1002:ab38
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: vfio-pci v: 0.2
           bus ID: 0b:00.4 chip ID: 1022:1487
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.0-28-generic
Network:   Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Apple driver: vfio-pci
           v: 0.2 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:43a0
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8125 v: 9.003.05-NAPI port: f000 bus ID: 05:00.0
           chip ID: 10ec:8125
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Device-3: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: f000 bus ID: 06:00.0 chip ID: 8086:2723
           IF: wlp6s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           IF-ID-1: br0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: unknown mac: <filter>
           IF-ID-2: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>
           IF-ID-3: virbr0-nic state: down mac: <filter>
           IF-ID-4: vnet0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 649.87 GiB (69.8%)
           SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 512 B
           logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: 2B2QEXM7 scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 929.32 GiB size: 913.74 GiB (98.32%) used: 649.43 GiB (71.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
           ID-2: /boot raw size: 732.0 MiB size: 704.5 MiB (96.24%) used: 409.6 MiB (58.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 976.0 MiB used: 30.8 MiB (3.2%) fs: swap swappiness: 60 (default)
           cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/dm-2
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 45.4 C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:      Processes: 355 Uptime: 2h 42m Memory: 31.31 GiB used: 25.84 GiB (82.5%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5
           target: graphical.target Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: zsh v: 5.8 running in: tty 2 (SSH) inxi: 3.0.38

❯ for g in `find /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/* -maxdepth 0 -type d | sort -V`; do
    echo "IOMMU Group ${g##*/}:"
    for d in $g/devices/*; do
        echo -e "\t$(lspci -nns ${d##*/})"
    done;
done;
IOMMU Group 0:
  00:01.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 1:
  00:01.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse GPP Bridge [1022:1483]
IOMMU Group 2:
  00:01.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse GPP Bridge [1022:1483]
IOMMU Group 3:
  00:02.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 4:
  00:03.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 5:
  00:03.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse GPP Bridge [1022:1483]
IOMMU Group 6:
  00:04.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 7:
  00:05.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 8:
  00:07.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 9:
  00:07.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to bus[E:B] [1022:1484]
IOMMU Group 10:
  00:08.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Host Bridge [1022:1482]
IOMMU Group 11:
  00:08.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to bus[E:B] [1022:1484]
IOMMU Group 12:
  00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller [1022:790b] (rev 61)
  00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge [1022:790e] (rev 51)
IOMMU Group 13:
  00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 0 [1022:1440]
  00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 1 [1022:1441]
  00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 2 [1022:1442]
  00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 3 [1022:1443]
  00:18.4 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 4 [1022:1444]
  00:18.5 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 5 [1022:1445]
  00:18.6 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 6 [1022:1446]
  00:18.7 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse Device 24: Function 7 [1022:1447]
IOMMU Group 14:
  01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43a0] (rev 03)
IOMMU Group 15:
  02:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43ee]
  02:00.1 SATA controller [0106]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43eb]
  02:00.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43e9]
  03:04.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43ea]
  03:08.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43ea]
  03:09.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device [1022:43ea]
  04:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller [0108]: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983 [144d:a808]
  05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller [10ec:8125] (rev 05)
  06:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX200 [8086:2723] (rev 1a)
IOMMU Group 16:
  07:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 XL Upstream Port of PCI Express Switch [1002:1478] (rev c1)
IOMMU Group 17:
  08:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 XL Downstream Port of PCI Express Switch [1002:1479]
IOMMU Group 18:
  09:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT / 5700/5700 XT] [1002:731f] (rev c1)
IOMMU Group 19:
  09:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 HDMI Audio [1002:ab38]
IOMMU Group 20:
  0a:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse PCIe Dummy Function [1022:148a]
IOMMU Group 21:
  0b:00.0 Non-Essential Instrumentation [1300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse Reserved SPP [1022:1485]
IOMMU Group 22:
  0b:00.1 Encryption controller [1080]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse Cryptographic Coprocessor PSPCPP [1022:1486]
IOMMU Group 23:
  0b:00.3 USB controller [0c03]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Matisse USB 3.0 Host Controller [1022:149c]
IOMMU Group 24:
  0b:00.4 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller [1022:1487]

macOS guest details

Optimizations

OpenCore

Remove tons of unneeded legacy drivers (HiiDatabase.efi, NvmExpressDxe.efi, OpenUsbKbDxe.efi, Ps2KeyboardDxe.efi, Ps2MouseDxe.efi, UsbMouseDxe.efi, VBoxHfs.efi, XhciDxe.efi, mXHCD.kext).
Remove tons of legacy quirks/workarounds from OC config.plist (many more can be cut out!).
Remove some OC bells/whistles that I don't need and therefore just cause clutter (AudioDxe.efi, OpenCanopy.efi, OpenShell.efi, CrScreenshotDxe.efi).
Remove SSDT-DTGP.aml (not needed; can use the PMPM method instead for enabling power management in SSDT-PLUG.aml).
Remove SSDT-EC.aml (not needed; AppleBusPowerController attaches fine without it under Catalina, and KVM OVMF firmware doesn't have a real EC that needs to be turned off).
Remove SSDT-USBX.aml (not needed; USB power properties can be added to USB port mapping kext (USBmap.kext).
Remove MCEReporterDisabler.kext (not getting kernel panics, so not needed).
Remove SSDT-PLUG.aml (not needed for CPU power management, which the hypervisor manages).
Personalized USBmap.kext created with USBMap.

Libvirt

Clean up the messy PCI configuration (can cut down on the number of controllers to what is needed, delete the PCIe to PCI legacy bridge, etc.).
Remove default emulated USB 3 controller.
Remove additional unneeded USB 1/2 controllers.

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README.md

README.md

macOS KVM

Background

Hardware info

Optimizations

OpenCore

Libvirt

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README.md

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README.md

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macOS KVM

Background

Hardware info

Optimizations

OpenCore

Libvirt