Help in getting GVT-g working for MacOS VM

Hi all,

I came across this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/innriq/successful_macos_catalina_with_intel_gvtg/ that reports partial success (no hardware acceleration) of GVT-g on a MacOS VM using a custom VBIOS.

The instructions to set it up on Fedora and Linux are available on this GitHub page: https://github.com/patmagauran/i915ovmfPkg/wiki/Using

I'm trying to make this work on Unraid. I already have the Intel GVT-g plugin from

@ich777

installed and it works correctly on a Windows 10 VM.

I've used the Macinabox docker container to install MacOS Monterey: 

Without assigning any vGPU to the MacOS VM it works just fine with software rendering.

I then created compiled the custom ROM, created a new vGPU instance, assigned it to the MacOS VM, and I have modified the xml to closely match the instruction shown for QEMU on the GitHub page. This is what I have in the end:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<domain type='kvm' xmlns:qemu='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/qemu/1.0'>
  <name>MacOS Monterey</name>
  <uuid>91b82c42-f5a2-424f-b45f-714ed7c190de</uuid>
  <description>MacOS Monterey</description>
  <metadata>
    <vmtemplate xmlns="unraid" name="Windows 10" icon="default.png" os="osx"/>
  </metadata>
  <memory unit='KiB'>8388608</memory>
  <currentMemory unit='KiB'>8388608</currentMemory>
  <memoryBacking>
    <nosharepages/>
  </memoryBacking>
  <vcpu placement='static'>2</vcpu>
  <cputune>
    <vcpupin vcpu='0' cpuset='0'/>
    <vcpupin vcpu='1' cpuset='1'/>
  </cputune>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-7.1'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' type='pflash'>/mnt/user/system/custom_ovmf/Macinabox_CODE-pure-efi.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/etc/libvirt/qemu/nvram/91b82c42-f5a2-424f-b45f-714ed7c190de_VARS-pure-efi.fd</nvram>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic/>
  </features>
  <cpu mode='host-passthrough' check='none' migratable='on'>
    <topology sockets='1' dies='1' cores='2' threads='1'/>
    <cache mode='passthrough'/>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset='utc'>
    <timer name='rtc' tickpolicy='catchup'/>
    <timer name='pit' tickpolicy='delay'/>
    <timer name='hpet' present='no'/>
  </clock>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>restart</on_crash>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/local/sbin/qemu</emulator>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='writeback'/>
      <source file='/mnt/user/domains/Macinabox Monterey/macos_disk.img'/>
      <target dev='hdc' bus='sata'/>
      <boot order='1'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='2'/>
    </disk>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-ehci1'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x7'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci1'>
      <master startport='0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x0' multifunction='on'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci2'>
      <master startport='2'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x1' multifunction='on'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci3'>
      <master startport='4'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='0' model='pcie-root'/>
    <controller type='pci' index='1' model='pcie-root-port'>
      <model name='pcie-root-port'/>
      <target chassis='1' port='0x10'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0' multifunction='on'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='2' model='pcie-root-port'>
      <model name='pcie-root-port'/>
      <target chassis='2' port='0x11'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='3' model='pcie-root-port'>
      <model name='pcie-root-port'/>
      <target chassis='3' port='0x12'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='4' model='pcie-root-port'>
      <model name='pcie-root-port'/>
      <target chassis='4' port='0x13'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x3'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='virtio-serial' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='sata' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x1f' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <interface type='bridge'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:7d:24:fd'/>
      <source bridge='br0'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x01' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
    <serial type='pty'>
      <target type='isa-serial' port='0'>
        <model name='isa-serial'/>
      </target>
    </serial>
    <console type='pty'>
      <target type='serial' port='0'/>
    </console>
    <channel type='unix'>
      <target type='virtio' name='org.qemu.guest_agent.0'/>
      <address type='virtio-serial' controller='0' bus='0' port='1'/>
    </channel>
    <input type='tablet' bus='usb'>
      <address type='usb' bus='0' port='1'/>
    </input>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <input type='keyboard' bus='ps2'/>
    <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes' websocket='-1' listen='0.0.0.0' keymap='en-us'>
      <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/>
    </graphics>
    <graphics type='egl-headless'>
      <gl rendernode='/dev/dri/by-path/pci-0000:00:02.0-render'/>
    </graphics>
    <audio id='1' type='none'/>
    <video>
      <model type='none'/>
    </video>
    <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='mdev' managed='no' model='vfio-pci' display='on'>
      <source>
        <address uuid='42a87f64-e629-4d69-9672-6bef7162d042'/>
      </source>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x04' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
    </hostdev>
    <memballoon model='virtio'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x03' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
    </memballoon>
  </devices>
  <qemu:commandline>
    <qemu:arg value='-usb'/>
    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>
    <qemu:arg value='usb-kbd,bus=usb-bus.0'/>
    <qemu:arg value='-device'/>
    <qemu:arg value='isa-applesmc,osk=[--- HIDDEN ---]'/>
    <qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
    <qemu:arg value='type=2'/>
    <qemu:arg value='-cpu'/>
    <qemu:arg value='Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+fma,+bmi1,+bmi2,+xsave,+xsaveopt,+rdrand,check'/>
  </qemu:commandline>
  <qemu:override>
    <qemu:device alias='hostdev0'>
      <qemu:frontend>
        <qemu:property name='x-igd-opregion' type='bool' value='true'/>
        <qemu:property name='romfile' type='string' value='/mnt/user/data/i915dev/i915ovmf.rom'/>
      </qemu:frontend>
    </qemu:device>
  </qemu:override>
</domain>

Every time I try to start the VM it completely freezes the host and I'm forced to reboot. I can still access the Unraud console if I open it beforehand but even trying to stop libvirt doesn't work..the command hangs. I have no way to access the VM log to see if there are any errors.

The freeze happens even if I don't specify the custom ROM.

Do you know what's going on? Would you be able to help me?

Thanks

Andrea

Edited August 31, 20232 yr by Andrea3000