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Running MacOS on Windows 10 with WSL2, KVM and QEMU

Nicole Stevens on August 06, 2020

Note - Unfortunately this no longer works due to movement in the WSL offering for Windows 11 Dev Channel. Am leaving this here incase some of the...

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Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 10 '20 • Edited

Finally it's running ! Very, very slow as of now but still it runs:

and here some Statistics from HTOP (inside the wsl2 Ubuntu 20.04):

And here are my Settings:
.wslconfig

[wsl2]
kernel=***my custom kvm kernel***
kernelCommandLine=amd_iommu=on iommu=pt vfio-pci.ids=1002:66af,1002:ab20 kvm.ignore_msrs=1 kvm-amd.nested=1 kvm-amd.ept=1 kvm-amd.emulate_invalid_guest_state=0 kvm-amd.enable_shadow_vmcs=1 kvm-amd.enable_apicv=1
memory=8GB
processors=8
swap=16GB
localhostForwarding=true
nestedVirtualization=true
pageReporting=true

and here the customized basic.sh:

#!/bin/bash

OSK="ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc"
VMDIR=$PWD
OVMF=$VMDIR/firmware
#export QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=pa
#QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=pa

qemu-system-x86_64 \
    -enable-kvm \
    -m 8G \
    -machine q35,accel=kvm \
    -smp 8,cores=4 \
    -soundhw ac97 \
    -cpu Penryn,vendor=GenuineIntel,kvm=on,+sse3,+sse4.2,+aes,+xsave,+avx,+xsaveopt,+xsavec,+xgetbv1,+avx2,+bmi2,+smep,+bmi1,+fma,+movbe,+invtsc \
    -device isa-applesmc,osk="$OSK" \
    -smbios type=2 \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file="$OVMF/OVMF_CODE.fd" \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,file="$OVMF/OVMF_VARS-1024x768.fd" \
    -vga qxl \
    -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-output \
    -usb -device usb-kbd -device usb-tablet\
    -netdev user,id=net0 \
    -device e1000-82545em,netdev=net0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:c9:18:27 \
    -device ich9-ahci,id=sata \
    -drive id=ESP,if=none,format=qcow2,file=ESP.qcow2 \
    -device ide-hd,bus=sata.2,drive=ESP \
    -drive id=InstallMedia,format=raw,if=none,file=BaseSystem.img \
    -device ide-hd,bus=sata.3,drive=InstallMedia \
    -drive id=SystemDisk,if=none,file=MacOS.qcow2 \
    -device ide-hd,bus=sata.4,drive=SystemDisk \

next step: Speedup that thing!

Nicole Stevens • Sep 10 '20

love this :) many thanks for sharing.
Wish I had something running AMD to help in the hunt for speedup tweaks. Will contact a couple of local user groups in the case anyone has something going spare.

MichaelF • Sep 11 '20

I was hoping to join in the optimization testing (3950X w/64GB RAM to play with) but so far I haven't made it past the first reboot when installing. It always stalls at:
"Initialized /dev/rdisk4 as a 10 MB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume".

@pkostelnik I'm using your wsl and basic files... can you share what you changed with the custom kernel?

Nicole Stevens • Sep 11 '20 • Edited

Might be able to help there @pkostelnik didn't use a custom kernel, I think that's what is meant in the first comment, no special build

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 11 '20 • Edited

it does work with and without the Kernel. I build mine along the tutorial from: Hayden Barns but simply changed from KVM for Intel to KVM for AMD and build it. (not as module).

But it took a couple of hours (i belive) to install the MacOS in the box and also the boot takes about 15min and yes you are not really able to work with but for me it's quite the first step as an engineering sample not even a PoC that it will work. ;-)

After some checks, seems like kvm is installed but not working ... trying now with a custom kernel and KVM_AMD as module!
Edit:
@nicole and @ciparis it seems like KVM (not as Module) is enabled in the system but didn't used. That`s why the catalina is sooo slow.

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 11 '20

just installed over night the insider 20211.1000 now it's a bit faster but still slow:

my ubuntu Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS linux kernel:

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 11 '20 • Edited

Ok, next step/s tweaks. Reached up to maybe 30% speedup of the machine:

Compiled the actual Kernel for KVM (not Module but including both systems Intel and AMD).
set up dbus on debian from: DamionGans on Github. After setting up the dbus you need to Terminate the WSL2 distro with: wsl.exe -t distroname on CDM or PowerShell. In my case Ubuntu as distroname.
after next start the dbus incl systemctl will become available.
its still hell slow ;-)

MichaelF • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

Mine is FINALLY working!

I ended up bailing on macOS-Simple-KVM (I could just never get past the first reboot). I tried everything -- new kernels, various options, nothing worked.

I found another, more complicated approach using OpenCore instead of Clover that ended up working out. Piling on extra RAM helped greatly with performance, as did using as many AMD processor flags as I could for KVM options. I'm pretty happy with where it ended up (using Catalina) but might try Mojave just to compare performance.

Thanks for this guide, Nicole! This post led me down a rabbit hole but it was a good one.

Nicole Stevens • Sep 12 '20

Great news! Many thanks for the update. That's interesting, am still trying to get my hands on an AMD machine to have a go at this.

Nicole Stevens • Sep 12 '20

@pkostelnik yeah dbus is a great shout, same IPC etc, did you check the performance gain after the full kernel compile or with both together?

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 12 '20

@nicole Not really because there is only a slightly speedup between this changes maybe 10-15%

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

@ciparis would you mind to share your configuration please.

MichaelF • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

Here's the guide I followed:

github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

I used the 2 networking lines from macOS-Simple-KVM rather than the method he listed, which did not work in WSL2. I've added a few more processor flags to my launch shell script (and changed the name for ease of typing) :

.wslconf borrowed and modified from yours (I'm pretty sure some of those AMD settings are non-functional) --note that the number of processors is inherited from the host and does not need listing here. When building my own kernel I had to use the 104 one -- the available 128 option failed to mount my C drive after building. I probably didn't need to go that route at all, since the current Insider dev build (20211.1005) has nested KVM support out of the box.

[wsl2]
nestedVirtualization=true
kernel=C:\\Users\\myUserPath\\bzImage
kernelCommandLine=amd_iommu=on iommu=pt vfio-pci.ids=1002:66af,1002:ab20 kvm.ignore_msrs=1 kvm-amd.nested=1 kvm-amd.ept=1 kvm-amd.emulate_invalid_guest_state=0 kvm-amd.enable_shadow_vmcs=1 kvm-amd.enable_apicv=1
memory=24GB
localhostForwarding=true

Launch script from this tutorial with my additions to the flags (I think svm is critical for AMD) and adjustments to RAM/Proc

############################################################################
# NOTE: Tweak the "MY_OPTIONS" line in case you are having booting problems!
############################################################################

MY_OPTIONS="+svm,+hypervisor,+msr,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+xsave,+xsaveopt,check"

# This script works for Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, and High Sierra. Tested with
# macOS 10.15.6, macOS 10.14.6, and macOS 10.13.6

ALLOCATED_RAM="17166" # MiB
CPU_SOCKETS="1"
CPU_CORES="4"
CPU_THREADS="8"

REPO_PATH="./"
OVMF_DIR="."

It's possible (likely?) that I could trace my original installation-reboot issue by comparing the launch file with the one from macOS-simple-kvm.

That list of processor flags provide a big performance gain, but I'm not done yet. My next step is to place all of the AMD processor flags into the options line and then systematically remove the ones that cause errors -- this is similar to the process used for the huge long list of Intel flags at the bottom of the Accelerated KVM Guests post, and my performance with the graphical Ubuntu shell he walks through the installation of at the bottom is fantastic. Granted that's has a much lighter overhead then macOS.

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

@ciparis i'm sure there is also a huge difference with the vCPU which he uses for QEMU.
I also use the switch -deamonize to free the WSL console for htop and other monitoring.

MichaelF • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

Here's the list of every AMD CPU flag (from /proc/cpuinfo) that is accepted without error by QEMU:

"+fpu,+vme,+de,+pse,+tsc,+msr,+pae,+mce,+cx8,+apic,+sep,+mtrr,+pge,+mca,+cmov,+pat,+pse36,+clflush,+mmx,+fxsr,+sse,+sse2,+ht,+syscall,+nx,+mmxext,+fxsr_opt,+pdpe1gb,+rdtscp,+lm,+pni,+pclmulqdq,+ssse3,+fma,+cx16,+sse4_1,+sse4_2,+movbe,+popcnt,+aes,+xsave,+avx,+f16c,+rdrand,+hypervisor,+lahf_lm,+cmp_legacy,+svm,+abm,+sse4a,+misalignsse,+3dnowprefetch,+osvw,+topoext,+ssbd,+ibpb,+stibp,+fsgsbase,+bmi1,+avx2,+smep,+bmi2,+rdseed,+adx,+smap,+clflushopt,+clwb,+xsaveopt,+xsavec,+xgetbv1,+xsaves,+clzero,+xsaveerptr,+arat,+npt,+nrip_save,+tsc_scale,+vmcb_clean,+flushbyasid,+decodeassists,+pfthreshold,+umip,+rdpid,check"

Performance remains good; I should probably benchmark between this list and the previous one.

MichaelF • Sep 12 '20 • Edited

@pkostelnik What version of macOS are you using?

I just tried Mojave and it ran much slower than Catalina (the opposite of what I expected). For whatever reason, Catalina is faster on my Ryzen setup. Still laggy, but usable.

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 13 '20

@ciparis trying actually both catalina (which started with clover) and also mojave, but trying now to change to opencore.

Pawel Kostelnik • Sep 9 '20 • Edited

Just trying on my HP Pavillion Gaming 15-EC0002 (or so) with Windows 10 insider (DEV Channel).
AMD Ryzen 3750H Mobile
16GB and some SSD
got Clover to boot and also installed MacOS (Mojave) now.
just got to change some things from Intel to AMD.
As of today no special Kerlen were needed!
My .wslconfig:

[wsl2]
memory=4GB
swap=8GB
localhostForwarding=true
nestedVirtualization=true
pageReporting=true
kernelCommandLine=amd_iommu=on iommu=pt kvm.ignore_msrs=1 kvm-amd.nested=1 kvm-amd.ept=1 kvm-amd.emulate_invalid_guest_state=0 kvm-amd.enable_shadow_vmcs=1 kvm-amd.enable_apicv=1

System is slow but still rebuilding!
Edit: It seems like 4 or 6GB are too less for MacOS.. trying to tweak up that thing ;-)
Still installing, in the time between i tried to build a KVM Kernel but... not even one worked as expected so back to basic.

here the actual TOP from the same Distribution:

Hmm... always running on:

apfs_module_stop:1432 .......... (remaining mem allocated: 0)

still stuck at the same stage ...
even with a rebuild kernel and 8GB + 4core/8Thread (Memory and CPU changed in .wslconfig and also in the basic.sh)

Nicole Stevens • Sep 9 '20

Many thanks for the update on the kernel and your .wslconfig file :)

Thanks for the note on memory too, I think I read something like that on a forum, 8GB was good, if I recall correctly. I just tried to find where I might have seen it but I can't sorry!

Kshitij Nigam • Sep 23 '21

Wow this post is so good, i spent a good chunk of time and was finally able to install catalina, updating it to BIGSUR as we speak.
I am new to kvm and unfortunately the qemu documentation is really crap.
May be someone can guide me:
1) how can i connect a usb device to the macos running
2) what is a nice setting for CPU, right now i just removed the thread option and added 6 cores, its not really fast but its ok

Nicole Stevens • Sep 24 '21

If you've followed this write up then your virtual disks should be in the folder so yes you can delete it and the bulk of the setup and used data is gone.

It's been a while since I tried this, been waiting for a new laptop so can check it out on Windows 11 but am sure had USB mouse and keyboard running and all was good. What's not working?

Kshitij Nigam • Sep 25 '21 • Edited

so If i am to insert my iphone, I cant connect the usb ports, I see that in WSL2 in general its not possible however some people have used usb over TCP to do that.
Secondly for some reason. once i installed everything and tried to restart the machine it doesnt start anymore :(

Kshitij Nigam • Sep 25 '21

hey I found out the issue my cpu settings were incorrect :)

Kshitij Nigam • Sep 23 '21

oh also how do u uninstall this just by deleting osx simple kvm folder?

davepl • Sep 5 '20

Well, I'm 90 minutes in, but it's unclear to me where jumpstart.sh and basic.sh come from. They're just used like they should be present, but from whence do they originate?

Thanks for any help!

Nicole Stevens • Sep 5 '20

No problem! This bit of text from the post :-

The MacOS-Simple-KVM GitHub repo is linked from the original post. It is described as "set up a simple macOS VM in QEMU, accelerated by KVM

Has a link on the "MacOS-Simple-KVM" words taking you to a GitHub repo.

I then start talking about QEMU, move past that and you'll see this paragraph :-

The steps were followed as listed but with the following tweaks. First clone the git repo in, make sure to use the linux filesystem as it is faster at the moment on wsl2 than windows (/mnt).

This might be where there's some confusion. Once you clone the GitHub repo linked to off of "MacOS-Simple-KVM" using your wsl session you need to cd into it. The files you mention are in there.

I hope that is clearer, if so I'll update the post accordingly :)

davepl • Sep 5 '20

Thanks! I did go back and spot it but appreciate the prompt followup!

I'm trying this on an i7-4770K before making the leap on the Ryzen 3970X!

Nicole Stevens • Sep 5 '20

Sounds like a plan :) glad you spotted it!

davepl • Sep 5 '20

Found it! It's the KVM Repro mentioned about half way through...

Nicole Stevens • Sep 6 '20

How did you get on, did you get it up and running?

davepl • Sep 7 '20

I bought and installed the X server and got it as far as booting Clover and the original BaseImage.img, but it would hang a ways into the text boot at one of the meeting/rendezvous/sync points in startup. So close, but so far!

Appreciate the write-up! I may give it another shot on the AMD when it enters Beta... I've been waiting on AMD sub-virtualization just for WSL2 under HyperV for a while now!

Jared Riddle • May 11 '21

Did you ever get it past hang after clover?
It's 3am, and my eyes are getting blury.

Jared Riddle • May 11 '21

I actually gave up on Clover and went with opencore with a different script github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

And THEN,

Using the config.plist that they provided ( and they admitted it needed work ) I spent a good hour getting it tweaked with:
opencore.slowgeek.com/
After that it was a matter of selecting which virtual "CPU" I wanted and I think I selected Skylake-Client?
mankier.com/7/qemu-cpu-models#Desc...
This list is to select what the cpu is that's being mimiced in the VM, and NOT what hardware model you have on your host machine.
Not to brag, but it's freaking Blazing fast now.

Kshitij Nigam • Sep 23 '21

wow awesome if u have a guid/gist please share

Mick Pearson • Jun 8 '21 • Edited

Mid 2021 (fresh WSLg install on a new AMD system) I'm having some unusual trouble with this. Two things: 1) the VM can't connect to the Internet. The MacOS installer (Reinstall) actually requires a connection to get started. It says "Recovery server could not be contacted" in a message box and sends me back to the menu. (I.e. in the Network Utility there's no response to the Ping function. I feel like you guys would've spoken about network stuff more if you'd encountered this... or you all have something else set up that made this a nonissue.) and 2) the installer UI runs super fast. (I.e. keyboard input is nigh impossible and animations are 10 times faster than they ought to be. Shouldn't a VM have a virtual real-time clock?)

I'm sharing this here because I think anyone doing this now will encounter these troubles, and I've sunk a lot time into trying harebrained fixes (classic Linux-hole wasting-time pattern) to no avail. I've posted a question on Reddit that's gotten some up-votes already (UPDATE: my posts were yanked for "too little information" provided, so I can't recommend these Reddit forums) (reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows...) that includes a link to a more detailed post on r/hackintosh that looks like it's unlisted, IOW waiting for mod approval that may never come.

Nicole Stevens • Jun 10 '21

Hey Mick, many thanks for the update. I haven't had to set this up since the end of 2020, so it's been a few releases for me too. I'm wiping my current setup in a couple of weeks, will try this again then.

RagManX • Jun 21 '21

Thanks so much for this write-up. I finally got to the installation step - Cataina is installing now. Appreciate all the follow-up you've done in the comments to help people get things working. I managed to make it to the install thanks to your guide plus comments of others, and I'm hoping to be running and testing MacOS before the night is out. Since my wife runs a Mac for her work, I need to learn a bit more about MacOS since I provide tech support. Your guide saves me needing my own Apple hardware, and with 2 kids starting college this year I can't express how much help that is.

Nicole Stevens • Jun 28 '21

So glad you found this useful !

Chad Michael • Nov 20 '21 • Edited

It seems that the dev channel is locked into wanting to upgrade to windows 11. And I haven't found a way to get access to previous dev channel windows builds otherwise. It seems I need at least the old dev channel build 19619 iso to get past kvm-ok. My system is stuck on 19044, and doesn't support upgrading to windows 11 because of the TPM requirement. Thoughts?

Chad Michael • Nov 21 '21

Well, I decided to be bold and upgrade my bios and eventually upgrade to windows 11 build on the dev channel.

I have mojave installing now, although it says it will take 14 hours so that doesn't bode well. Guess I'll check it in a couple days and see what happens.

Thanks for the tutorial BTW. Was just was I was looking for to get started with this.

Chad Michael • Nov 21 '21 • Edited

I had the same issues on the first reboot as MichaelF reported in his comment. So I tried the OSX-KVM he referenced and its working great! Installing Xcode 11.1 now and seeming like it will be completely usable for my purposes.

For reference, I'm on Windows 11 build 22504, Intel i7-6700, and running the Ubuntu 20.04 and Mojave vms using X410.

Silfalion • Jan 19 '21

Do you think it’d be possible to enable gpu acceleration on OSX through WSL 2 gpu support?

Pawel Kostelnik • Jun 23 '21

Maybe in the future as soon as the GPU (let's talk about something like "passthrew") will get full support in WSL.

Silfalion • Aug 10 '21

That’ll be a grand day.

jstraten • Nov 24 '21

When I am running kvm-ok, I am getting: KVM acceleration can be used
However, when I run ./basic.sh, I am getting Could not access KVM kernel module: Permission denied
qemu-system-x86_64: failed to initialize KVM: Permission denied
It seems to be some kind of authorization problem, but I can't figure out a solution. Did anybody run into the same problem and has somehow resolved it? Thank you!

Pawel Kostelnik • Dec 13 '21 • Edited

Sorry being so late with my answer.
Permission denied means mostly that you need to change the permissions on /dev/kvm to 666 :
sudo chmod 666 /dev/kvm
this should resolve your Permission denied problem.

But you will do this after each reboot / restart of wsl.

Aaron Gray • Mar 31 '21

I am getting the following :-

$ sudo kvm-ok
INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions
KVM acceleration can NOT be used

Although I have an LG Gram 17Z90N with Intel Core-i7 1065G7.

Jared Riddle • May 11 '21

This had me stumped for a long time as well.
Oddly enough, it didn't matter whether I was using my i5 or my Celeron.
The key was getting the Windows DEV Channel version of Windows 10.

Settings > Windows Insider Program > Dev Channel.

It was the very first step in the referenced "PreReq" steps blog post, and I just Blew past it because I didn't understand what "Fast Ring" meant.

Nicole Stevens • Apr 8 '21

Hey, sorry missed this last week, did you get this sorted?

DavidGP • Aug 10 '20

Ok so now you can run all sorts of Linux distributions and even Mac OS directly on a Linux subsystem that is contained in Windows 10.

I'm giving up 🤯💥💨

Piyush Bansal • Jun 26 '21

Nice writeup! I had recently installed macos on virtualbox using this repo github.com/myspaghetti/macos-virtu.... I was wondering, if running it through KVM improves any performance. Though, I have also installed macos on qemu on a Linux distro, and it is more performant than the virtualbox one. Have you ever tried the virtualbox solution?

Nicole Stevens • Jun 28 '21

Hey Piyush, I haven't tried the virtualbox solution, my understanding is KVM should give you an increase, but if you're working with really old hardware, there is a limit to what you can achieve. Your link has this section - github.com/myspaghetti/macos-virtu... which seems to suggest that this may be the case. Just to add, I love virtualbox as a goto for new users, so easy to manage :)

Fermín Cirella • May 17 '21 • Edited

Thank for this article. I made to the point where QEMU runs with KVM (? probably) but whenever I try to boot Ubuntu or Windows install, I end up with a GSOD with HYPERVISOR_ERROR message.
I will try now with OSX-KVM to see if there is any difference. If not, I'll try different kernel versions.
I'm on Ryzen 3600.

EDIT: Tried OSX-KVM with 4.19.104 kernel and default build 21354 but still got GSOD with same error.

EDIT 2: Managed to boot up to the High Sierra installer but on shutting down GSOD HYPERVISOR_ERROR appeared. Setting kvm=off on the main file (OpenCore-Boot.sh) managed to reduce that error.
I will now try Catalina with various options including kvm=off and other tweaks to see if I can get rid of that error.

EDIT 3: Installing Catalina, no GSOD so far.

truefranco • Feb 26 '22 • Edited

Running on Windows 11 :P, trying now to get video acceleration but not sure if it is possible on Windows Host.

Straying • May 15 '23

Can you express how to achieve that on windows?

3rdN3rd • Aug 19 '22 • Edited

Just wanted to share with the OP that this method is no longer possible with Windows 10, as the Windows 10 Dev channel seems to have been halted in favor of Windows 11 Dev Channel. If you subscribe to Insider Dev or Beta channels when on Windows 10, you are automatically given Windows 11 by default even if you're on unsupported hardware. And the release preview coming up (22H2) doesn't even have the feature either, and it's supposed to be the final release preview I think? So I'm guessing this is a big "oof" and Microsoft decided to not release this for Windows 10 at all. :/

Joey R. • Oct 12 '21

Will try this with wslg on 2700x

Fernando Moura • Apr 16 '22

I finally got it
I've been trying to run some version of macos for a long time and I couldn't. Your tutorial was great for helping me.
Thank you