During a recent pentest, I needed to throw together a macOS virtual machine. Although there was lots of guides around the web, none seemed to work from start to finish. This post contains the steps I extracted from various resources in order to get a fully working High Sierra install within VirtualBox 5.
- Virtualbox For Mac Os High Sierra Download
- Virtualbox For Macos High Sierra
- Install Mac Os High Sierra
Step 1: Download The High Sierra Installer
To do this, you need to be on an existing macOS system. I was unable to find the download within the App Store itself, but following this link opened the App Store at the correct page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?mt=12
In this article, I will show you How to install MacOS High Sierra on Virtualbox on Windows. MacOS High Sierra is the 14th version published by Mac Apple company, actually, MacOS High Sierra is using for Macintosh computers and Mac’s. And it succeeds of MacOS High Sierra and it was announced by WWDC the latest version for people on 5/June/2017. This post contains the steps I extracted from various resources in order to get a fully working High Sierra install within VirtualBox 5. Step 1: Download The High Sierra Installer. To do this, you need to be on an existing macOS system. I was unable to find the download within the App Store itself, but following this link opened the App Store at the correct page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-high-sierra.
After opening the aforementioned page in the App Store, start the download, but cancel the installation when it starts.
You can then verify that the installer has been downloaded by checking that '/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app' exists.
Step 2: Create a Bootable ISO
Next, you need to create an ISO from the installer application that was downloaded in step 1.
Running the below commands will create an ISO on your desktop named HighSierra.iso:
Step 3: Creating the Virtual Machine
I experimented with a few different settings in regards to the CPU and RAM allocation. I didn’t find a combination that didn’t work, but create a VM with the following things in mind:
- Ensure the name of the VM is
MacOS(ensure to keep the same casing) - Ensure the type is
Mac OS Xand the version ismacOS 10.12 Sierra (64-bit)(there is a High Sierra option too, but I chose Sierra by accident and it worked) - Untick
FloppyinSystem > Motherboard > Boot Order - Use >= 4096 MB of memory in
System > Motherboard - Use >= 2 CPUs in
System > Processor - Use 128 MB of video memory in
Display > Screen - Optionally enable 3D acceleration in
Display > Screen - Remove the IDE device in
Storage > Storage Devicesand replace it with a SATA controller - Add a new hard disk device under the SATA controller with >= 60 GB of space
- Ensure an optical drive is present under the SATA controller and mount the previously created ISO to it
- Untick the
Enable Audiooption underAudio
After creating the virtual machine with the above configuration, hit OK and exit the settings screen. Now, a number of extra options need to be set.
If you’re on Windows, you’ll need to cd into the appropriate directory under the VirtualBox installation path to run VBoxManage. For Linux users, this should be in your PATH variable already:
After running the above commands, the VM should be ready to boot!
Step 4: Installation
This is where near enough everything I read stopped, despite there being one more problem in the way - UEFI.
Boot into the VM, go into Disk Utility and erase the virtual disk that you added to the machine.
After erasing the disk, start the installation procedure. After a short amount of time, it will reboot the VM.
Once it reboots, it’s going to boot back off the ISO again, once it’s done this, just shutdown the VM and eject the disk [the ISO] and then start the VM again to boot from disk.
On the next boot, it should boot into the installer that was copied to disk, but instead, you will be presented with a UEFI shell like below:
To continue the macOS installation, follow these steps:
- Type
exitand hit return - Select
Boot Maintenance Managerand hit return - Select
Boot From Fileand hit return - You will see two partitions, select the second partition and hit return
- Select
macOS Install Dataand hit return - Select
Locked Filesand hit return - Select
Boot Filesand hit return - Select
boot.efiand hit return
After following these steps, you will boot into the remainder of the macOS installation. From here, just follow the steps as per a regular macOS installation.
The next time you boot your virtual machine, you will not have to go through the UEFI shell; it should work without any further problems.
Virtualbox For Mac Os High Sierra Download
Step 5: Tweaking The Resolution
As there is no VirtualBox additions for macOS, the screen resolution won’t automatically change. If you know what resolution you wish to use, however, you can set it manually.
Ensure the virtual machine is powered off, and then run the following command; replacing 1920x1080 with whatever resolution you would like to use:
After running the above command, the next time you boot the machine, it will use the resolution specified.
Now, you should have a fully working macOS virtual machine!
References
Virtualbox For Macos High Sierra
The information found in this post was pieced together from the following sources:
Hi community,I am new here even if I have been working with Virtualbox now for several years (but very basic). Now I have run into a problem which I cannot solve:
I have a Mountain Lion (10.8.5) guest which I have imported onto a new host (Mac Mini Mid 2011 with an SSD an 8GB of RAM and High Sierra 10.13.6). The guest starts booting but stops and reboots. This goes on forever.
Same guest machine was working fine on the original host and is working fine on another Mac Mini Mid 2010 (also High Sierra 10.13.6) where it was imported to.
I am attaching some screenshots I have taken from the boot process on the OS X guest. How can I add more and how can I add logs from VB which are larger than 128kb?Can anyone help, please?
Install Mac Os High Sierra
Thanks