The first Beta of Apple MacOS 11 (Big Sur) was just released a couple of days ago and I know folks are excited to start kicking the tires. Some folks have noticed when to installing Big Sur running on VMware Fusion, the following error is observed:
BIErrorDomain error 3
From the suggested workarounds, it looks like the MacOS installer was somehow unable to detect that the underlying hardware was Apple which causes this generic error to be thrown. Interestingly, this was the same error I came across when attempting to install Big Sur on ESXi 7.0. Instead of having to lookup your physical Apple hardware IDs and specify several VM Advanced Settings, you can simply add the following setting which will accomplish the same behavior:
smbios.reflectHost = "TRUE"
After the setting has been applied, the error should go away and you should be able to upgrade from an existing MacOS deployment to Big Sur. This issue has already been reported internally at VMware and I have also shared with the teams the quick workaround.
Here is Big Sur on ESXi 7.0 running on an Apple Mac Mini 2018 (requires ESXi 7.0b patch VMware-ESXi-7.0b-16324942)
Here is Big Sur on ESXi 6.7 Update 3 running on an Apple Mac Mini 2018 (requires ESXi 6.7 Patch 02 ESXi670-202004002)
Just FYI I believe the new Big Sur OS is actually 11.0 and not 10.16
Yea, I’ve seen both mentioned in public forums but looking at the build, it does say 11.0
10.16 is used in some places internally and on the update servers (Some rumour because 10.15 and lower can’t fathom version numbers higher than 10), the official version number is however 11.0 like you noticed. Hopefully with 11.1 that internal discrepancy will go away and it will be showing 11 everywhere.
Hi William! Any clue on why Big Sur runs under ESXi on Mac mini 2018 but Catalina won’t?
Scratch that – I just saw on an earlier post that you mention this has been fixed.
Hello me I am on VMware Workstation 15.5.6 and I have the same error as you of course I have this line in the vmx file: smbios.reflectHost = “TRUE”
but still the same
Hi, should you explain me how to apply to ESXi 7.0b patch VMware-ESXi-7.0b-16324942 ? pls (is a zip file)
You apply it just like any other ESXi update 🙂
See https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2020/06/how-to-patch-intel-nuc-10-with-latest-esxi-7-0-update.html
What does BiErrorDomain mean in the first place?
You’ll have to ask on the Apple forums, this is an error in the Guest
william,
would you have a step by step to get ESX1 installed and running on mac mini for test work? Sry but really new to this but could really use a guide if you have one available. Trying this with Catalinia and Big Sur would be awesome.
Hi.. I know this is a little noob question, but I would like to get a feedback.
If ESXi can be be installed on Raspberry Pi 4. Will it be possible to virtually run macOS on the ESXi installed on the Raspberry Pi 4?
No, please refer to rPI docs on Fling site on OSes that will work
Can you please share a link?