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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

they killed their server hardware line (Xserve) in 2004

Minor nit: 2011 [0] But similar to you, I'm surprised macOS Server is even a thing anymore. What are you supposed to run it on? That six year old quad-core Mac Mini? The oh-so-long-in-the-tooth trash can Pro your department still clings to? Off the top of my head, I'm a little stumped as to what I'd use to best utilize Xcode's distributed build functionality. Apple hasn't made what I feel is an appropriate tool for that job in at least six years.

[0] https://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L422277A_Xserve_Guide.pd...

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The only logical "server-ish" thing I can think of is a build server for projects requiring Apple-only dev tools. I doubt anyone is using OS X server for that though. I've seen Mac Minis used for this, and I recently learned it's not that hard to run macOS in a VM, but the latter is probably not in keeping with the EULA.

What if Apple offered a configurable "hardware blessing" license for sale (perhaps tied to the purchaser and a specific macOS version, not the hardware, and non-transferable)? It would allow you to legally run x copies of macOS 10.y on non-Apple hardware (either directly or as a VM). If Apple did that, I'm sure our IT department would jump on it. They're very frustrated about having to maintain Mac Minis just to host macOS VMs.

Failing that, what exactly constitutes Apple hardware, legally? Could I run a macOS VM on a big Dell server if I zip-tie a Mac Mini motherboard to the enclosure?

Could I run a macOS VM on a big Dell server if I zip-tie a Mac Mini motherboard to the enclosure?

You can if, assuming Apple wished to pursue it, you're ready to tell that to a judge with a straight face.

You can run MacOS in a VM as long as it’s on apple hardware.

Outside of that MacOS in a VM is a bit performance hamstrung as hardware acceleration for graphics doesn't work in most straightforward setups.

Do you have any references to running GPU workloads on a Mac VM?

NVidia passthrough is actually not too hard to get working these days on KVM, thanks to the driver support that’s been added aimed at eGPUs.

Right, but then the question of what hardware to use remains. And if you find it, perhaps the VM isn't as necessary.

"DO NOT JUMP THE FENCE"

However, even in a VM it's missing hardware IDs that prevent it from being able to sign an app that can actually run on an iPhone.

What hardware ID are you talking about? As far as I was aware, as long as your code is validly signed it should run fine on iPhone.

It bears reminding that the EULA is not enforceable in all jurisdictions. I am not suggesting copyright violation - just that running a legit macOS in a VM on a non Apple hardware is sometimes very handy. For instance for iOS building or for quickly regression test you Mac app across a handful of macOS versions.

I wonder what Apple run their builds on, a Hackintosh?

That’s a really good question. You know how we always said there’s hope that Apple won’t ditch the Mac since they themselves couldn’t stand to use Windows or Linux for their workstations...

I have no knowledge of their internal setup, but I suspect they have a big room full of racked ESX servers (non-Apple hardware) running builds on macOS VMs. And probably a ton of networked iPhone motherboards running automated tests.

I just wish they would make that kind of setup (macOS VMs on non-Apple hardware) legal for other developers.

My understanding is that internally when they have tasks that their own hardware isn't appropriate for they use a combination of Linux and macOS running on commodity PC hardware. They have an internal version of macOS for the commodity PCs. The person who told me hinted they got machines from a big name vendor like Dell or HP. I was informed of this in a discussion about AR and VR. Basically we all asked how Apple even did work on this internally when their own machines clearly had some issues with that sort of workload. This was like six months ago and related to speculation about showing the new Mac Pro at WWDC 2018, which didn't end up happening.

Interesting. I wished Apple had a Mac Pro that is basically the old Cheese Grater, and rack based in the size of 3U or 4U. It should aim to hit both market with a single design. I mean even if they do it for internal usage, along with other niche for Server and Pro uses would be enough to sustain the business.

When I worked as a consultant for Apple Retail Software Engineering, we did have huge clusters of machines running VMware — on the biggest, beefiest, Xserve hardware that could be bought. Maxed out on RAM, CPU, and everything else that could be crammed into those boxes.

I was told that the entire final run of hardware was reserved for Apple internal use.

Our Jenkins CI/CD server was just a VM on the cluster, and ran Xcode to do the iOS and MacOS X builds on one set of slaves, and the Linux back-end server software on another slave.

Dunno what they’ve got now.

> I was told that the entire final run of hardware was reserved for Apple internal use.

I get the sense that Apple's strict devotion to its product line is (to put it nicely) creating a discontinuity between their own practices and what they offer to others. It makes me think Apple needs a separate company or brand to offer practical utilities (and perhaps consulting) to companies wishing to deploy Apple software -- things like licenses to use macOS on non-Apple hardware (like a Dell EMC VxRack SDDC[0]), productizing some of their own IT solutions, special iPhones with a 1Gb RJ45 port attached for automated testing, and even "catch the vision"-style marketing to promote their idea of a data/compute center that integrates macOS and other Apple technologies.

[0] https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/converged-infrastructure/vxrac...

>I just wish they would make that kind of setup (macOS VMs on non-Apple hardware) legal for other developers.

Seriously....would love to be able to install MacOS as a VM on ESXi on a Dell Power Edge, or HP Proliant.

You can do that with a couple minutes of Googling. Oh, did you mean legally?

>Oh, did you mean legally?

Yes, funny enough my employer likes to keep things on the up-and-up.

Just tell them how much money they'll save. Their attitude might change pretty quick.

I am sure the judge will understand it then.

I'm sure in true Apple style, it's entirely custom, works fairly well, and much more expensive than any alternatives.

If it has hardware problems they probably need to scrap the entire thing and rebuild it from scratch.

I've heard for major things like the OS, they have standard server racks that I'm guessing have an equivalent of hackintosh to enable building macos / ios with it.

Departments themselves use adhoc apple hardware.

An Apple Watch, of course. It's the blinged-out one studded with Swarovski crystals, which is how you know it's the model for IT pros.

The builds admittedly take a bit longer, but that's a small price to pay for style.

Apple runs many workloads on baremetal Kubernetes inside their own data centers. Source: I've done some platform engineering contract work for them.

iCloud runs on Linux and open-source software. Learned that from an interview with Apple in the datacenter group.

I've heard it said that they have a farm of Mac Minis for build servers.

For release mastering, or the normal development cycle?

I’ve got a Mid 2010 Mac Mini running regular macOS I use as a light duty home server. Went to update it to Mojave this weekend to find Apple dropped support for it! F-me for having still-working hardware, I guess :(

If you don't mind disabling SIP, you can still run Mojave on a lot of older hardware: http://dosdude1.com/mojave

Wow, neat! Thank you!

There's also the rumor going around that the mini will (finally) get an update this month.

Ah you're right. In my cursory glance at wikipedia I looked at the Xserve G4 box instead of the product line as a whole.

That was followed by Xserve G5 from 2004 to 2006 and Intel Xserve from 2006 to 2011, with its last update in April 2009.

The storage-focused Xserve Raid was discontinued earlier in 2008.

The only thing really is Open Directory for centralized accounts, and you only need a Mac Mini for that. We do this in an isolated secure network where we keep certain assets for customers who have confidential data. For everything else, we moved to Windows years ago.

I wouldn't even use it for Open Directory anymore. At this point I would just migrate the accounts to Jumpcloud and ditch the server entirely.

Not an option in our use case. Off-prem introduces too many compliance concerns. We're talking near-HIPPA isolation.

https://jumpcloud.com/blog/hippa-secuirty-rule-idaas/

https://jumpcloud.com/solutions/auditing-compliance/

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