vfuse
This script takes a never-booted DMG and converts it to a VMware Fusion VM.
The germ of this idea came about, as all good ideas, and germs, do: while drinking beer. Specifically, I was tossing back drinks and tossing around ideas with Gilbert Wilson, and he mentioned that he uses the VMware CLI tools to convert DMGs to VMDKs based on a blog post he'd read. Intrigued, I asked Gil to email me the specifics. After seeing how potentially cool this was, I wrapped it up in this here terribly illegible, queasingly unpythonic script.
Requirements
- VMware Fusion 11.x Professional or above
- OS X 10.14+
- A never-booted image created with AutoDMG.
- (optional) Packer 1.1.1 (or above) for building a vagrant box.
- (optional) qemu-img
Usage
usage: vfuse [-h] [--version] [-i INPUT] [-o OUTPUT] [-n NAME] [-w HW_VERSION]
[-m MEM_SIZE] [-s [SERIAL]] [-t TEMPLATE] [-e] [-p PACKER] [-d D]
[--hw-model HW_MODEL] [--use-qemu [USE_QEMU]] [--recovery]
[--snapshot] [--snapshot-name SNAPSHOT_NAME] [-c CHECKSUM]
[--list-templates] [--list-cache] [--clear-cache]
Create VM from source DMG.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--version show the version number
-i INPUT, --input INPUT
/path/to/dmg
-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
/path/to/output/dir
-n NAME, --name NAME Use a custom name
-w HW_VERSION, --hw-version HW_VERSION
VMware hardware version
-m MEM_SIZE, --mem-size MEM_SIZE
Memory Size in MB
-s [SERIAL], --serial [SERIAL]
Custom Serial number
-t TEMPLATE, --template TEMPLATE
Use a template
-e, --esx Create pre-allocated ESX-type VMDK
-p PACKER, --packer PACKER
Populate a packer template
-d D Path to CD/DVD ISO path
--hw-model HW_MODEL Custom hardware model
--use-qemu [USE_QEMU]
Use qemu-img intead of the Fusion CLI tools [/path/to
/qemu-img]
--recovery Boot into Recovery HD
--snapshot Create initial snapshot
--snapshot-name SNAPSHOT_NAME
Custom name for the initial snapshot
-c CHECKSUM, --checksum CHECKSUM
Generate checksum of a DMG
--list-templates Return list of available templates
--list-cache Return list of cached disk images
--clear-cache Clear cached disk images
Creating a VM
Running vfuse
does not necessarily require sudo rights, but if you don't want to be prompted in the GUI for an admin password, run it with sudo
. (Escalated privileges is required to run the vmware-vdiskmanager
binary, which vfuse
uses.)
The only required argument is -i
aka --input
. Run thusly, it will create a vm called macos-vm.vmwarevm
in the current working directory:
/usr/local/vfuse/bin/vfuse -i /path/to/dmg
See the wiki for more on how to use vfuse
.
Caveats
vfuse
is meant to be used with never-booted disk images created with AutoDMG. Using vfuse
with a dmg created with Disk Utility is not something that has been tested, so you're on your own there. Likely, it's even more of a longshot with APFS.
License
Copyright 2016-Present Joseph Chilcote
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.