Making Changes To Your Hackintosh VM

Resize Disk of your HSVE macOS VM

This guide has a video walkthrough, please consider watching the video here: https://youtu.be/x9CokQvbFYc

Increasing Disk Size In VM Hardware Section - Proxmox Web UI

In the Hardware tab of your VM, select your disk (e.g., `virtio0`) and click 'Disk Actions' at the top.

Enter the 'amount you want to increase it by', *not the new total size*.

Example: If your current disk is '250GB' and you want '500GB total', you must type '250'.

Expanding Disk In macOS After Increasing In VM Hardware

Boot into your macOS VM, open 'Terminal', and run:

diskutil list

This will show your disks. Example: `disk0` might be '524.4GB', but the APFS container (`disk3`) is still only '255.8GB'.

Your disk numbers may be different — double check before running commands!

Repair the Disk Partition Run:

diskutil repairDisk disk0


Type 'y' when prompted.

4Resize the APFS Container Run:

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk3 0


This expands the APFS volume to use all available space.

Verify TRIM Status Check in 'System Information → SATA/NVMe' if 'TRIM' is enabled.
If disabled, run:

sudo trimforce enable

Done! Your macOS VM should now be using the newly expanded disk space.

If you require any support please contact us

RAW vs. QCOW2 Making Changes To Your VM

RAW Disk Image

Raw images offer a “raw” characteristic that results in performance comparable to physical drives, making them highly efficient. Moreover, this feature allows for direct attachment to VMs. Another advantage of raw images is their straightforward conversion to various image types.

Raw signifies being in its original and unformatted form, such as a disk. In Linux, a raw image is a type of unadulterated binary image. In a file system that allows sparse files, a raw image only occupies the real storage capacity of the disk data.

qcow2 Disk Image

qcow2, also known as QEMU Copy on Write 2, is a virtual image format that is compatible with the QEMU emulator. It is a popular choice in virtual environments, similar to raw image, and currently offers nearly identical performance.

Benefits over raw Disk Image

The qcow2 image requires less storage space because it does not support holes in the file system. In contrast, the raw image is typically larger in size. The qcow2 file only expands when the virtual machine utilizes the disk space, resulting in a more efficient storage solution. With COW and copy-on-write, the qcow2 image reflects only the modifications made to the underlying disk. Snapshots are supported by qcow2 images, and it is possible to have multiple snapshots in one image. Within the qcow2 file format, zlib compression can be applied independently to each cluster, providing enhanced compression capabilities. The support for AES encryption in qcow2 allows for encryption using a 128-bit key. Converting a Disk Image Format Should you already have a Virtual Machine running on Proxmox with one or the other format and want to switch for the benefits over the other, you can convert using the QEMU-img conversion tool, which comes bundled in Proxmox.

Converting qcow2 to raw

qemu-img convert -p -f qcow2 -O raw /<folder>/<disk-image>.qcow2 /<folder>/<disk-image>.raw

Converting raw to qcow2

qemu-img convert -p -f raw -O qcow2 /<folder>/<disk-image>.raw /<folder>/<disk-image>.qcow2

How To Passthrough GPU To Your VM

PCI Device passthrough does allow you to pass over things like your GPU for proper acceleration within your Virtual Machines, which makes it possible to run games and other graphic intensive tasks with no performance loss compared to your bare-metal installed Windows for example.

A single guide cannot possibly cover all the different systems that exist. Our guide attempts to give you as much information as possible. There is a lot of information out there, and not all of it may be relevant to you and your system, do be sure to make some research of your own.

Configuring the system BIOS Important BIOS settings for getting things working properly!

For ignoring some annoying "warnings" in your dmesg output, do the following

nano /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf
options kvm ignore_msrs=Y report_ignored_msrs=0

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

Setting the Boot arguments For Intel CPUs

For GRUB; Replace the current similar line with this one in your grub file.

nano /etc/default/grub

Make these changes to that file.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet intel_iommu=on iommu=pt initcall_blacklist=sysfb_init"

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

For AMD CPUs

For GRUB; Replace the current similar line with this one in your grub file.

nano /etc/default/grub

Make these changes to that file.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet iommu=pt initcall_blacklist=sysfb_init"

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

Your system might not be relying on Grub, but systemd instead, this is the case when you're using ZFS. So for systemd;

nano /etc/kernel/cmdline
root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs intel_iommu=on iommu=pt initcall_blacklist=sysfb_init

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

Your system might not be relying on Grub, but systemd instead, this is the case when you're using ZFS. So for systemd;

nano /etc/kernel/cmdline
root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs iommu=pt initcall_blacklist=sysfb_init

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

For GRUB only Only if your system uses Grub, always required after making changes!

update-grub

For systemd only Only if your system uses systemd, always required after making changes!

pve-efiboot-tool refresh

Reboot to commit changes

reboot

Configuring IOMMU Once the Host is up and running again, we need to verify that IOMMU is enabled

For Intel CPUs

dmesg | grep -e DMAR -e IOMMU

For AMD CPUs

dmesg | grep -e DMAR -e IOMMU -e AMD-Vi

If there is no output, something is wrong. You should be seeing something like this; "DMAR: IOMMU enabled"

Enable necessary kernel modules, run the following command

nano /etc/modules

Add the following lines;

vfio
vfio_iommu_type1
vfio_pci

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

After changing anything modules related, you need to refresh your initramfs.

update-initramfs -u -k all

Now check if remapping has been enabled.

dmesg | grep remapping

Should output something like this; For AMD CPUs "AMD-Vi: Interrupt remapping enabled" For Intel CPUs "DMAR-IR: Enabled IRQ remapping in x2apic mode" x2apic can be different on older CPUs, but should still work. Only if you encounter issues, consider this; You could also try adding in nox2apic to your Grub or Systemd args.

If your system doesn't support interrupt remapping, you might want to allow unsafe interrupts. Please be aware that this option might make your system unstable, but not necessarily.

nano /etc/modprobe.d/iommu_unsafe_interrupts.conf

Add the following line;

options vfio_iommu_type1 allow_unsafe_interrupts=1

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

Blacklisting driver modules to give the VMs full access to the graphics cards etc.

nano /etc/modprobe.d/pve-blacklist.conf

Add the following lines;

blacklist nouveau
blacklist nvidia
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi
blacklist snd_hda_intel
blacklist snd_hda_codec
blacklist snd_hda_core
blacklist radeon
blacklist amdgpu

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

For PCI passthrough to work properly, you need to have a dedicated IOMMU group for each of the devices you want to assign to a VM. To make sure that's the case, do the following;

pvesh get /nodes/{nodename}/hardware/pci --pci-class-blacklist ""

Replace {nodename} with the name of your Proxmox node.

This is an example of one of my nodes. As you can see, my GPUs, USB Controllers, Wireless adapter has their own dedicated group.

If your devices are in the same group, be sure to double check for ACS (Access Control Service) in your BIOS. Should you not find it anywhere, you can apply an override patch by including pcie_acs_override=downstream,multifunction in your grub or systemd file, if so go back to the step where we edit our said system file.

Blacklisting your Devices Finding the corresponding IDs for your PCI devices, run the following command

lspci -nn | grep -i {device}

{device} = vga, nvidia, usb, audio, wireless, and so on. Don't include the { } brackets.

You should then see a list similar to below; "0x.00.x USB controller … [1234:5678]" "0x:00.x VGA compatible controller … [1234:5678]" "0x.00.x Audio Device … [1234:5678]" Not necessary to take note of the GPU Audio ID. Only do one device reference at the time, and take note of the IDs you need.

As you can see here, the ids for my GPUs are 10de:1287 and 1002:67d. You might want to look for your USB Controller ids as well, if you encounter any issues with USB Passthrough down the line. Keep yours noted for the next step!

In general it's recommended to add the IDs for all devices you plan on using for a VM. What the blacklisting essentially does, is to block the devices for Proxmox holding them hostage, and not letting a VM have full access to it, at least in most cases.

Blacklisting the PCI device IDs for the host, run the following command

nano /etc/modprobe.d/vfio-pci.conf

Add the Device IDs in this file like this;

options vfio-pci ids=1234:5678,1234:5678 disable_vga=1

Hit Ctrl + X -> Y -> Enter to save changes.

Again, do not add the GPU Audio ID. Note that adding disable_vga=1 here will probably prevent guests from booting in SeaBIOS mode, if you use that for anything.

You can also add disable_idle_d3=1 to the end of the line, essentially disables the D3 Device Power State; which will prevent certain hardware to enter a low-power mode, that might cause issues when some are passed through, read more here. Does no harm with disabling it, might only consume more power down the line. Has shown better stability for Thunderbolt cards for example.

Now when you got all that sorted, you want to reboot your Host machine once again.

reboot

Adding your Devices to your VM(s) When your Host is up and running again, we can finally start adding in our accessories to our VMs! Before you continue, depending on your choice of GPU, AMD or Nvidia, do take a look at the bottom of the page first for making necessary configurations to your macOS.

This is totally normal with the Console window whenever a GPU is added or Display is set to none.

So, make sure you got your monitor hooked up or at least a dummy plug so that you are able to remote into the VM, with your preferred Remote App.

This is the setting you want to have set for your GPU to fully work. For some, only All Functions and ROM-Bar can be ticked. Do your own experimenting with these options!

Some cards also requires a dumped .rom file for it to work. To acquire that you must dump the file yourself from your specific card, look for the guide further down in this post.

We recently discovered that if PCI-Express is not ticked, things like HDMI-Audio might not work. But do note that your install might not boot with it ticked, then have it un-ticked.

vBIOS Dumping (optional) AMD Vendor Reset (optional) Some tweaks might be necessary depending on the type of GPU you've got, you'll need mount your EFI disk and open this file in your preferred OpenCore config editor.

AMD Users EFI/OC/config.plist

Mount your EFI drive and open the file in OpenCore Configurator. Boot-args goes under NVRAM -> 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82

AMD RX 5000 and 6000 series requires the following boot-arg to get proper output. agdpmod=pikera

Only use OpenCore Legacy Patcher if you got any GTX 600 or 700 series by Nvidia, as that series is the only ones compatible with macOS.

AMD RX 400/500 and RX 5000/6000 series does not require any patching, as they are native cards.

Nvidia Users EFI/OC/config.plist boot-args goes under NVRAM -> 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82 amfi=0x80 AMFI is enabled ngfxcompat=1 Force compat property missing ngfxgl=1 Force OpenGL property missing nvda_drv_vrl=1 nvda_drv(_vrl) variable missing

To solve the SIP error, change csr-active-config to 030A0000 Upon reboot, select Reset NVRAM from the boot-picker.

If you require any assistance with any of the above please contact us.