OS X El Capitan (10.11) public beta 1

[MacUser]

Installed OS X El Capitan (10.11) public beta 1 (plus the additional beta update to solve 32bit issues with some apps) on an external HD.
Fortunately SheepShaver is working flawless for me

More info about the OSX El Capitan beta: http://forums.macrumors.com/forums/os-x ... 10-11.184/

Off topic, rumors are that Apple in time (next version of OSX after El Capitan ?) want to skip support for 32bit apps like SheepShaver so I hope someone with programming skills can build a 64bit SheepShaver version before that happens.

Wim

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

The current 64-bit SheepShaver did run fine in 10.7 through 10.9, but stoppend working in 10.10.

There are many issues in SheepShaver that will need to be addressed to keep it alive with future OSX versions. The way SheepShaver uses memory is one of those issues.

[neozeed]

If they drop support for 32bit, then the Sheep is cooked.

[MetalSnake]

If they drop support for 32bit, then the Sheep is cooked.

Is SheepShaver still needed when it's possible to run most Mac OS Versions using QEmu?

[adespoton]

If they drop support for 32bit, then the Sheep is cooked.

Is SheepShaver still needed when it's possible to run most Mac OS Versions using QEmu?

So far, yes. It isn't yet possible to run pre-10.2 in QEmu; and even when it is, the speed and functionality will be significantly different than what SS offers.

[CharlesS]

If they drop support for 32bit, then the Sheep is cooked.

Is SheepShaver still needed when it's possible to run most Mac OS Versions using QEmu?

So far, yes. It isn't yet possible to run pre-10.2 in QEmu; and even when it is, the speed and functionality will be significantly different than what SS offers.

The fastest Mac model that ran OS 9 natively was the 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4. The machines currently available are many times the speed of that. Obviously we can't know for sure until QEMU is actually working with OS 9, but I can't imagine speed would be that big of a problem.

[Old-School-BBSer]

Man, I dread the day when Apple completely drops support for 32-bit apps, and it has been on my mind since I first learned about this possibility; although "probability" would probably be a more accurate word for it.

Once that day arrives, my old school Hermes II BBS will become history -- I've had over 235 registered users on it since this past April 2015 -- as will my old school Hotline server. They BOTH run under Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver.

But all things eventually come to an end, and we must press on according to Apple's dictates.

[adespoton]

That's why we've got virtual machines

I keep a copy of OS X 10.6 in a VM, and it's useful for compiling software that runs on all versions of OS X, as well as for running older emulators.

[Old-School-BBSer]

That's why we've got virtual machines

I keep a copy of OS X 10.6 in a VM, and it's useful for compiling software that runs on all versions of OS X, as well as for running older emulators.

Well, I suppose that one of these days I may have to install VirtualBox again. I have no need of it otherwise, because I don't run any Windows OSes on my machine. It was fairly easy to set up VirtualBox when I tried it out some time ago. Not bad at all for a free package.

But considering what a headache it was for me to get networking to work properly between Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.0.4/SheepShaver earlier this year -- I had to install TunTap and do other stuff -- I can only wonder what frustrating challenges I would face if I am eventually forced to move from SheepShaver to VirtualBox, or some other virtual host app.

So are you suggesting that I can just as easily run Mac OS 9.0.4 from within a VM like VirtualBox, as I currently do with SheepShaver?

I only use SheepShaver to run my old Hermes II BBS and my old Hotline server. I am not an old school gamer, or anything like that.

[adespoton]

> So are you suggesting that I can just as easily run Mac OS 9.0.4 from within a VM like VirtualBox, as I currently do with SheepShaver?

Only sort of; what I'm really suggesting is running OS X 10.6 inside VirtualBox, and run SheepShaver/9.0.4 inside that. This way, the only thing that needs to keep support going is VirtualBox, and your actual environment can just happily run along in the background. It also means you can snapshot the entire environment before making changes, to enable really simple rollback (or even switching between two configuraitons). Plus, moving this virtual system to another computer is as simple as exporting to OVA, then importing it on the new system. VirtualBox 5.x also supports volume encryption.

And the added benefit is that this internal system can have TunTap etc. installed, and you know that whenever you upgrade your host OS (or computer), no re-configuring is needed. If you like, you can even install the Clover bootloader, and you'll be able to use your guest OS environment on any computer (running OS X/Windows/Linux) that uses an Intel-compatible architecture.

Since VirtualBox doesn't do 3D acceleration all that well on OS X, it wouldn't be a good choice for gaming, but it's perfect for running SheepShaver in OS X 10.6.

[MacUser]

> what I'm really suggesting is running OS X 10.6 inside VirtualBox, and run SheepShaver/9.0.4 inside that. This way, the only thing that needs to keep support going is VirtualBox

Am I right in thinking with VirtualBox it is also possible to use OSX 10.4 (Tiger) skip Sheepshaver and use the build in Classic environment of OSX 10.4 for running OS9 ?

I like to keep a work around in case Apple drops 32 bit support as simple as possible, all I need OS9 for is to run some old software like HyperCard, no internet, no printing (except PrintToPDF) and no support for gaming is required.

Wim

[adespoton]

> what I'm really suggesting is running OS X 10.6 inside VirtualBox, and run SheepShaver/9.0.4 inside that. This way, the only thing that needs to keep support going is VirtualBox

Am I right in thinking with VirtualBox it is also possible to use OSX 10.4 (Tiger) skip Sheepshaver and use the build in Classic environment of OSX 10.4 for running OS9 ?

I like to keep a work around in case Apple drops 32 bit support as simple as possible, all I need OS9 for is to run some old software like HyperCard, no internet, no printing (except PrintToPDF) and no support for gaming is required.

Wim

Sorry; won't work. VirtualBox is a virtual environment on existing architecture -- meaning 10.4 Intel will run on VirtualBox 4.3.6, but 10.4 for Intel didn't run Classic, because Classic is a virtual environment for running Mac OS 9.2.2 inside OS X PPC.

Your choices for running Classic Mac PPC software are currently:
SheepShaver running 9.0.4 (either inside VirtualBox or on the host)
Using a PowerPC Mac running 10.4.11 or earlier

That's it. QEmu will hopefully be able to run 9.2.2 (and 10.4 with Classic) at some point in the future, but that work isn't complete yet. MESS also has some PPC emulation that is also not complete yet.

[MacUser]

. . . Your choices for running Classic Mac PPC software are currently:
SheepShaver running 9.0.4 (either inside VirtualBox or on the host)
Using a PowerPC Mac running 10.4.11 or earlier . . .

Thx for the explanation.

Wim

[Old-School-BBSer]

Only sort of; what I'm really suggesting is running OS X 10.6 inside VirtualBox, and run SheepShaver/9.0.4 inside that. This way, the only thing that needs to keep support going is VirtualBox, and your actual environment can just happily run along in the background.

Wow! Talk about a multi-layered environment!

And this will actually still allow AppleTalk and Ethernet to reach the outside world via TunTap, from within Mac OS 9.0.4?

So basically, you are talking about running a VM -- meaning VirtualBox in my case -- inside my real host/machine -- meaning my iMac -- and then running a guest system -- meaning OS X 10.6 -- inside my VM -- meaning VirtualBox -- and then running yet another VM -- meaning SheepShaver -- inside the guest system -- meaning OS X 10.6 -- and then running a second guest system -- meaning Mac OS 9.0.4 -- inside that second VM -- meaning SheepShaver.

Have you actually done this yourself already, or is this just a theoretical possibility?

As I said earlier, getting networking to work properly between OS 9.0.4 and OS X -- Yosemite at the time, as I recall -- was a major headache, and took me weeks to figure out.

It was only when I learned about TunTap on this same forum, that I was able to successfully get an ethernet bridge running between OS 9.0.4 and Yosemite. Even still, I had to assign one NAT IP address to OS 9.0.4, and another NAT IP address to Yosemite, so that all traffic for my BBS and my Hotline server -- which run under OS 9.0.4 -- could be properly directed to those two apps via port forwarding from my wi-fi router.

With your setup, you are adding an additional two layers to the mix, which is why I am wondering if I will be able to tunnel through all of that, and still have a functioning BBS and Hotline server, which my friends will be able to visit, as they do now.

Also, is there a specific reason why you use OS X 10.6 in your response? Could I just as easily use Yosemite as my guest system running inside VirtualBox on a host machine running El Capitan?

And one final question: How would this even more complicated setup play with SIP? Have you had any issues where you have had to temporarily disable SIP -- via Recovery Mode/Terminal/csrutil disable -- in order to do something within this complex environment?

As I said, this is such a convoluted setup that you describe, that I am a bit amazed that it could possibly still work for my purposes of running a PPC-based BBS, and a PPC-based Hotline server, which both require TCP/IP access to the outside world, via an ethernet bridge.

Thanks in advance!

[adespoton]

The big difference is that VirtualBox is virtualizing the hardware, where SheepShaver is emulating. VirtualBox makes the networking fairly easy, as you can bridge directly across the host (and ignore being able to access your servers on your host *outside* the VM) or use NAT to access from the host, with just a single drop-down selection change in VBox. There are some tricky bits to using Tun/Tap inside a VM, but I can't remember what they are right now. If I get the time, I'll run up one of my VMs to see how I got it configured.

As for using 10.6, that's because 10.6 is really the target environment for SheepShaver, and it's faster than 10.10 (and smaller, and less resource intensive). Since all you're doing is running SheepShaver, no reason to include all the extra features that have been added to the OS since then -- in fact, you can strip 10.6 down quite a bit, since you're just using it as a SS platform -- remove Spotlight, all the default apps, etc. (but keep a copy of XCode installed just in case you need to recompile something).

And once you get it all set up, it's completely portable with no more fiddling on your hosts. Unless VirtualBox stops working in 10.12, your entire setup will keep working, even if 32-bit software stops working, and even if SheepShaver's debug trick and memory addressing no longer work. They'll still work inside 10.6 (and yes, 10.11). 10.6 also allows you access to the older Disk Utility, and direct access to optical drives from SheepShaver, even if the host OS doesn't anymore. And OSXFuse no longer works under 10.11 due to a new security layer, so mounting HFS images no longer works.

[Old-School-BBSer]

Thanks for the info Adespoton. This is all very interesting. I don't understand it all -- probably because I haven't tried setting it up yet -- but you really are motivating me to try doing so, so that I have an escape plan for the future, if and when it becomes necessary. Perhaps I shouldn't say "if and when", but rather just "when", because we all know that it is going to happen sooner or later. We both know how Apple likes to kill things when it is to its advantage to do so.

I will no doubt have a lot of questions when I decide to set this up. I hope that you will have the time to answer them for me -- since you are obviously so familiar with it -- and will help me to pull this off with as little frustration as possible.

I already have questions forming in my mind, particularly regarding getting the networking working between OS 9.0.4, OS X 10.6, VirtualBox and El Capitan on my iMac.

Thus far, I am seeing this:

1. Install VirtualBox again.
2. Install OS X 10.6 in VirtualBox.
3. Install TunTap in OS X 10.6

Will I then be able to simply duplicate a copy of my current "SheepShaver" folder which currently resides in my El Capitan "Applications" folder -- and which contains my 132 GB Mac OS 9.0.4 .dmg image, which itself contains my full BBS setup and my full Hotline setup already running -- into OS X 10.6's "Applications" folder? That would save so much time, work and energy -- and frustration, no doubt.

Or am I going to have to set up everything from scratch inside OS X 10.6, beginning with re-installing and re-setting up SheepShaver?

If so, that would be A LOT of work, because after setting up a new SheepShaver inside OS X 10.6, I would have to re-install my BBS software, as well as my Hotline software, and then re-upload over 4,000 files to both my BBS, and to my Hotline server. In the case of both my BBS and my Hotline server, I would also have to recreate all of the file areas and file directories -- there is a ton of them -- and type in file descriptions for every single file in my BBS.

Man, this is looking humongous!

So please, please tell me that I can just drag my current "SheepShaver" folder into OS X 10.6 inside VirtualBox, and that I won't lose anything, or break anything.

[Old-School-BBSer]

Adespoton, I already have my first few new questions, in addition to what I've already asked you in my previous post.

So far, I have downloaded the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 install DVD .dmg image, as well as the Snow Leopard 10.6.8 combo update .dmg image.

I likewise downloaded VirtualBox 5.0.4 and have just installed it.

I was in the process of creating a virtual hard disk for the 10.6.3 installation when I stopped; the reason being that VirtualBox recommends a 20 GB virtual hard disk. However, as I mentioned in my previous post, my SheepShaver virtual hard disk -- which contains Mac OS 9.0.4, my full Hermes II BBS setup, my full Hotline server setup, and a few other apps and utilities, is already 132 GB in size.

Therefore, doesn't it stand to reason that my 10.6.3 virtual hard disk in VirtualBox has to be at least that size as well? If so, I am going to have to hold off for now, because I don't have that much space available on my iMac's hard drive.

Also, when I choose Snow Leopard 10.6.3 as the system I wish to install, VirtualBox gives me the option to select 32-bit or 64-bit in the pull-down menu. Being as SheepShaver can only run in 32-bit mode -- at least that has been the case with both Yosemite and El Capitan -- should I choose 32-bit mode for the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 installation, or 64-bit mode? Will the Snow Leopard installer recognize that I have 64-bit capable machine, and install the 64-bit version of Snow Leopard by default, even if I select 32-bit mode in the VirtualBox setup?

FYI, I have a 3.0.6 GHz Intel Cored 2 Duo 24" iMac, which currently runs the El Capitan Golden Master.

Anyway, once you answer the above questions for me, I will next install Snow Leopard 10.6.3 in VirtualBox, followed by the 10.6.8 combo update.

This will be followed by installing TunTap.

After that comes the BIG question. As I asked in my previous post, will I be able to simply copy my enter SheepShaver folder over to Snow Leopard's "Applications" folder, and keep everything intact, without breaking my BBS setup, or my Hotline server setup?

Let me ask one more question regarding networking. The way my network currently works, my wi-fi router has one internal LAN IP address, my iMac has another internal LAN IP address, and my OS 9.0.4 setup in SheepShaver has yet a third internal LAN IP address. So when I set up networking in Snow Leopard in VirtualBox, in order to avoid network conflicts, won't I need to establish a fourth internal LAN IP address which is different from the other three?

Also, being as I already have TunTap installed in my El Capitan setup, would I, or would I not, have to install it in my Snow Leopard installation in VirtualBox as well?

I am in murky waters here, so I just want to do this right the first time around.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Cat_7]

Hi,

I helped you getting things running network-wise. I now do not remember whether your setup uses network bridging, but I assume it does as you route traffic to a static IP address in Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver (see your script to start SheepShaver).
If it does, this kind of bridging is not available in OSX 10.6. It is only available in Mountain Lion and above.
So your installation inside Virtual box should either be with Mountain Lion, or you need to follow our guide for Appletalk using IpNetRouterX.

Best,
Cat_7

[Old-School-BBSer]

Hi,

I helped you getting things running network-wise. I now do not remember whether your setup uses network bridging, but I assume it does as you route traffic to a static IP address in Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver (see your script to start SheepShaver).
If it does, this kind of bridging is not available in OSX 10.6. It is only available in Mountain Lion and above.
So your installation inside Virtual box should either be with Mountain Lion, or you need to follow our guide for Appletalk using IpNetRouterX.

Hello Cat_7. Yes, you did indeed help me to set up networking for SheepShaver, and yes, I do indeed use an ethernet bridge via the TunTap installation. Thank you again for helping me with that. I couldn't have done it without your input.

By "static IP address in Mac OS 9.0.4", I assume you are referring to the fact that I manually set a NAT IP address in the TCP/IP control panel, like this:

Connect via: Ethernet
Configure: manually
IP Address: 10.0.x.x
Submask:255.255.255.0

. . . and yadda, yadda.

BTW, yes, I continue to use a shell script to launch SheepShaver, and the "sudo ifconfig bridge0 destroy" Terminal command, whenever it becomes necessary, which is just about everyday, or every few days, when I have to reboot my machine and start with a fresh ethernet bridge.

My shell script is really quite simple:

#!/bin/bash
sudo arch -arch i386 /Applications/SheepShaver/SheepShaver.app/Contents/MacOS/SheepShaver & sleep 10
sudo ifconfig bridge0 create
sudo ifconfig bridge0 addm en0
sudo ifconfig bridge0 up
sudo ifconfig bridge0 addm tap0

Okay, the reason I was going to use Snow Leopard is because that is what Adespoton suggested, being as according to him, SheepShaver is most compatible with that version of Mac OS X.

However, in light of what you have stated, and because I don't want to have to mess with AppleTalk again, and yet another app -- meaning IpNetRouterX -- I think I will just download Mountain Lion again. In fact, I am downloading ML right now via the App Store. I just hope that it is the full installer, because the App Store shows it as being 4.45 GB. If I recall correctly, we had to have Lion installed years ago, in order to even use the Mountain Lion updater from the App Store. So again, I hope that this is the full installer, and not just the Lion --> Mountain Lion updater.

Wait a minute . . . this is the Mountain Lion installer app that I am downloading. Don't I actually need a full install DVD image in order to install Mountain Lion in VirtualBox?

Hmmm . . . How about if I just take the "InstallESD.dmg" file out of the "Install OS X Mountain Lion" installer app and use that? Will VirtualBox recognize it and install it?

BTW, I am not sure how soon Adespoton will find time to answer some of the questions I asked in my previous two posts here. Would it be possible for you to re-read those two posts and answer some of those other questions if you can?

Thanks a lot!

[adespoton]

Good catch, Cat_7 -- I forgot about the bridging aspect. Yes, I believe he set it up with bridging, which is going to require 10.7 instead of 10.6 :\

For the other questions:
Under 10.7 or later, you should just be able to copy everything over and run it, assuming the guest configuration is set up correctly. You will need to ensure that your file paths are the same in the guest however, or else you will need to modify some settings to point to the right locations. If you're not using a SheepVM bundle, you will need to ensure you copy over the ~/.SheepShaver_prefs file.

As for the files in your SheepShaver disk images, you can leave them as-is -- you'd just need to copy the entire disk image over.

The disk image size will definitely be an issue. There's also the issue of transferring data; what I usually do (since there are no additions for OS X) is temporarily set networking to be between host and guest, and set up a file share folder. If you can get the networking right, it should be possible to keep your sheepshaver disk image on the host and access it via a network share with the guest, but I've never tried this.

As for Mountain Lion installer app -- there's a script going around that will convert the image into one you can use; by default, InstallESD.dmg won't boot, so can't be used for the install. Of course, it WILL install over 10.6.8, but that seems like a bit too much work to go through.

Based on your current setup, I'm tempted to suggest putting this off until things actually break, as it looks like you'll need a bigger hard disk to make things work in the first place, and who knows what will change with VirtualBox between now and then.

[Old-School-BBSer]

Hello again Adespoton,

Good catch, Cat_7 -- I forgot about the bridging aspect. Yes, I believe he set it up with bridging, which is going to require 10.7 instead of 10.6 :\

So as I asked previously, when I install Mountain Lion, should I select 32-bit or 64-bit in the pull-down menu that VirtualBox presents? Being as SheepShave only runs in 32-bit mode, would it be pointless to install Mountain Lion as a 64-bit system?

Under 10.7 or later, you should just be able to copy everything over and run it, assuming the guest configuration is set up correctly. You will need to ensure that your file paths are the same in the guest however, or else you will need to modify some settings to point to the right locations. If you're not using a SheepVM bundle, you will need to ensure you copy over the ~/.SheepShaver_prefs file.

Okay, some of that is a little ambiguous.

When you say "copy everything over", exactly what are you referring to? My "SheepShaver" folder in my El Capitan "Applications" folder?

After all, I will be installing Mountain Lion from scratch, and I will be running a lean system with no other apps installed, other than my full SheepShaver installation, and its associated virtual hard disk, which is currently about 132 GB in size.

In short, I will be creating a brand new user account in Mountain Lion, identical to the one I currently have in El Capitan. After all, if I try to migrate my El Capitan user account to Mountain Lion -- if that is even possible -- it would drag all of my personal apps into ML as well, which I don't want to do. As I said, Mountain Lion will be used to strictly run my SheepShaver installation, and the BBS and Hotline server within.

I assume that my preferences in the "Network" preferences pane in Mountain Lion will likewise have to be the same as El Capitan, other than assigning a unique NAT IP address to Mountain Lion, so that it doesn't conflict with El Capitan's NAT address, or with my wi-fi network's NAT IP address, or with my OS 9.0.4 setup's NAT IP address. I asked you about this in a previous post.

Likewise, I will name the hard drive icon on my Mountain Lion desktop the same as the one on my El Capitan desktop, so that no paths are broken with SheepShaver.

No, I do not use a SheepVM bundle, so yes, I need to remember to copy over that invisible ".SheepShaver_prefs" file.

As for the files in your SheepShaver disk images, you can leave them as-is -- you'd just need to copy the entire disk image over.

Okay, that was one of my big questions and concerns. Just being able to copy over the "SheepShaver" folder -- including the 132 GB disk image -- will save me weeks of work, because I have 4,000+ files on both my BBS, as well as on my Hotline server.

The disk image size will definitely be an issue.

Okay, so are you confirming then that the virtual hard disk I create in VirtualBox for Mountain Lion has to be at least as large as the virtual hard disk that I use in SheepShaver; that is, about 132 GB? If so, I can make that space on my hard drive, and in fact I was going to work on it in the upcoming hours after I get some rest.

There's also the issue of transferring data; what I usually do (since there are no additions for OS X) is temporarily set networking to be between host and guest, and set up a file share folder. If you can get the networking right, it should be possible to keep your sheepshaver disk image on the host and access it via a network share with the guest, but I've never tried this.

Okay, I really hope that I am misunderstanding you here. Are you saying that because there are no additions in VirtualBox for OS X -- as there are for Windows, for example -- I won't be able to simply drag and drop files and folders from any part of El Capitan to any part of Mountain Lion? That doesn't seem to make sense.

As far as "temporarily set networking to be between host and guest, and set up a file share folder", that is going to be a bit challenging for me to figure out. I may need some help with that.

Why would I want to keep my SheepShaver virtual hard disk -- meaning my 132 GB DMG image which contains OS 9.0.4, my BBS, and my Hotline server -- on the El Capitan side? Wouldn't it be better to keep it in the "SheepShaver" folder in Mountain Lion's "Application" folder, just as I currently do with El Capitan?

As for Mountain Lion installer app -- there's a script going around that will convert the image into one you can use; by default, InstallESD.dmg won't boot, so can't be used for the install.

Oh really? I assumed that the "InstallESD.dmg" image would be recognized by VirtualBox as an install DVD. Well, I found some instructions online which will allow me to burn the "InstallESD.dmg" image to a single-layer DVD, as a bootable DVD, even though the "InstallESD.dmg" image is slightly bigger than the capacity of a single-layer DVD. Would this work in VirtualBox? Here is where I read it at:

http://www.hightechdad.com/2012/07/25/h ... usb-drive/

Do you know the name of the script, or where I can obtain a copy of it. I am not one to allow modern technology to defeat me so easily. If I were that way, my BBS, and Hotline server, would not even be running in SheepShaver right now.

Of course, it WILL install over 10.6.8, but that seems like a bit too much work to go through.

Are you saying that the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 install DVD .dmg image that I downloaded yesterday will work in VirtualBox?

I could then run the Snow Leopard 10.6.8 combo update .dmg image, and then the Mountain Lion installer app after that. Yes, it would require a lot of work and time on my part. However, if that is the only way to get this done, I will do it. I won't be defeated by this stuff. I tend to persever and push on until I overcome technological obstacles.

But, if burning that "InstallESD.dmg" image to a DVD will work, I much prefer to do that instead.

Based on your current setup, I'm tempted to suggest putting this off until things actually break, as it looks like you'll need a bigger hard disk to make things work in the first place, and who knows what will change with VirtualBox between now and then.

Man, oh man! Now you tell me!

Are you suggesting that VirtualBox has a limit regarding the size of the virtual hard disk that it can create for Mountain Lion? While VirtualBox suggests a 20 GB virtual hard disk, as I said earlier, I can make space on my El Capitan hard drive to accommodate the 132 GB virtual hard disk in SheepShaver that the Mountain Lion virtual hard disk would have to host.

I asked this before, but I haven't received a clear answer yet:

The way my network currently works, my wi-fi router has one internal LAN IP address, my iMac has another internal LAN IP address, and my OS 9.0.4 setup in SheepShaver has yet a third internal LAN IP address. So when I set up networking in Mountain Lion in VirtualBox, in order to avoid network conflicts, won't I need to establish a fourth internal LAN IP address for Mountain Lion in the "Network" preferences pane which is different from the other three?

And another question which I asked previously:

Being as I already have TunTap installed in my El Capitan setup, would I, or would I not, have to install it in my Mountain Lion installation in VirtualBox as well?

Thanks in advance for any further guidance any of you can provide. I await your responses.

[adespoton]

So as I asked previously, when I install Mountain Lion, should I select 32-bit or 64-bit in the pull-down menu that VirtualBox presents? Being as SheepShave only runs in 32-bit mode, would it be pointless to install Mountain Lion as a 64-bit system?

Installing Mountain Lion, you should select "Mountain Lion" from the pull-down menu -- it only offers a 64-bit option. For Snow Leopard, I generally recommend the 32-bit version. But as has been pointed out, that's incompatible with bridging.

When you say "copy everything over", exactly what are you referring to? My "SheepShaver" folder in my El Capitan "Applications" folder?

That depends on where you have things stored, but it sounds like you've got your OS 9 disk image in your SHeepShaver folder -- which means you just need to copy/move that folder and the .SheepShaver_prefs file.

I assume that my preferences in the "Network" preferences pane in Mountain Lion will likewise have to be the same as El Capitan, other than assigning a unique NAT IP address to Mountain Lion, so that it doesn't conflict with El Capitan's NAT address, or with my wi-fi network's NAT IP address, or with my OS 9.0.4 setup's NAT IP address. I asked you about this in a previous post.

Likewise, I will name the hard drive icon on my Mountain Lion desktop the same as the one on my El Capitan desktop, so that no paths are broken with SheepShaver.

Yes, you will also have to set up your Network preferences the same. When setting up VirtualBox, it will have its own MAC ID, so will appear on the network as a completely different computer than the host. You could select NAT networking, but using the bridged adapter is much cleaner with no extra translation layers to mess things up. However, it's probably best to use the configuration you are most comfortable with, unless you want to spend a few hours trying the various options to figure out which one works best.

Okay, so are you confirming then that the virtual hard disk I create in VirtualBox for Mountain Lion has to be at least as large as the virtual hard disk that I use in SheepShaver; that is, about 132 GB? If so, I can make that space on my hard drive, and in fact I was going to work on it in the upcoming hours after I get some rest.

Yes: you are creating a container of a specific "virtual" size -- I'd set it to something a bit larger than the 140GB you'll need to hold your OS 9 image and the operating system, as it won't actually take up more space on your host OS. Set it to something smaller than the actual size of the host hard disk, and you should be fine. Also useful to note, although a different exercise, is that SheepShaver now supports sparse image bundles, which means you can do the same thing with it -- make a large "virtual" sized OS 9 image, and it will only use up as much space on disk as the data it is actually storing. Combining the two, it means your Mountain Lion disk image will only be as large as the OS plus the actual data in the OS 9 image stored inside it.

There's also the issue of transferring data; what I usually do (since there are no additions for OS X) is temporarily set networking to be between host and guest, and set up a file share folder. If you can get the networking right, it should be possible to keep your sheepshaver disk image on the host and access it via a network share with the guest, but I've never tried this.

Okay, I really hope that I am misunderstanding you here. Are you saying that because there are no additions in VirtualBox for OS X -- as there are for Windows, for example -- I won't be able to simply drag and drop files and folders from any part of El Capitan to any part of Mountain Lion? That doesn't seem to make sense.

As far as "temporarily set networking to be between host and guest, and set up a file share folder", that is going to be a bit challenging for me to figure out. I may need some help with that.

Why would I want to keep my SheepShaver virtual hard disk -- meaning my 132 GB DMG image which contains OS 9.0.4, my BBS, and my Hotline server -- on the El Capitan side? Wouldn't it be better to keep it in the "SheepShaver" folder in Mountain Lion's "Application" folder, just as I currently do with El Capitan?

I'm saying that because there are not guest additions in VirtualBox for OS X, you won't be able to simply drag and drop files and folders between the two OSes -- and also won't be able to use the Shared Folders feature. Setting up a network share is really the only option, until OSXFuse is modified/signed to work with 10.11's new security model. At that point, you'll be able to open the guest drive image as a disk on the host system to copy stuff back and forth -- but until then, network sharing is the only method available. It's simple though, just share a folder on either the host or guest, and then use the other system to browse to that share and copy the files. If you're using NAT as you plan, you can probably set this up and keep it running while SheepShaver is also connected to the network, so everything will be visible on your network.

I assumed that the "InstallESD.dmg" image would be recognized by VirtualBox as an install DVD. Well, I found some instructions online which will allow me to burn the "InstallESD.dmg" image to a single-layer DVD, as a bootable DVD, even though the "InstallESD.dmg" image is slightly bigger than the capacity of a single-layer DVD. Would this work in VirtualBox? Here is where I read it at:

http://www.hightechdad.com/2012/07/25/h ... usb-drive/

Do you know the name of the script, or where I can obtain a copy of it. I am not one to allow modern technology to defeat me so easily. If I were that way, my BBS, and Hotline server, would not even be running in SheepShaver right now.

That's basically what you need to do. If you want to go the easy route, http://diskmakerx.com/whats-this/ has wrapped it all up in an easy to use App. You'll be writing to an 8gb disk image (which you can create with Disk Utility) instead of a USB disk or DVD, but the process is the same.

Are you saying that the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 install DVD .dmg image that I downloaded yesterday will work in VirtualBox?

Yes. You'll need to convert it to a .cdr image first, which I believe is a bit tricky from El Capitan (maybe you still get the option with the Option key held down?). A compressed SL install DMG file won't be readable by VirtualBox.

I could then run the Snow Leopard 10.6.8 combo update .dmg image, and then the Mountain Lion installer app after that. Yes, it would require a lot of work and time on my part. However, if that is the only way to get this done, I will do it. I won't be defeated by this stuff. I tend to persever and push on until I overcome technological obstacles.

Yes, this method should work fine. I've done it myself a number of times

But, if burning that "InstallESD.dmg" image to a DVD will work, I much prefer to do that instead.

Indeed; creating a bootable installer image from InstallESD will work, and is much faster/simpler.

Are you suggesting that VirtualBox has a limit regarding the size of the virtual hard disk that it can create for Mountain Lion? While VirtualBox suggests a 20 GB virtual hard disk, as I said earlier, I can make space on my El Capitan hard drive to accommodate the 132 GB virtual hard disk in SheepShaver that the Mountain Lion virtual hard disk would have to host.

Nope, not suggesting that at all. It just sounded from your original post like you didn't have enough space left to be copying 132GB files around. If you can make the space, VirtualBox won't get in your way.

I asked this before, but I haven't received a clear answer yet:

The way my network currently works, my wi-fi router has one internal LAN IP address, my iMac has another internal LAN IP address, and my OS 9.0.4 setup in SheepShaver has yet a third internal LAN IP address. So when I set up networking in Mountain Lion in VirtualBox, in order to avoid network conflicts, won't I need to establish a fourth internal LAN IP address for Mountain Lion in the "Network" preferences pane which is different from the other three?

This should be automatic with VirtualBox; the guest VM will show up on your LAN as a unique IP. If you're doing this statically instead of via DHCP, you will have to go in and manually configure it inside the guest.

And another question which I asked previously:

Being as I already have TunTap installed in my El Capitan setup, would I, or would I not, have to install it in my Mountain Lion installation in VirtualBox as well?

Sorry, I thought I had answered that. You'll need to install it in Mountain Lion, as SheepShaver will be hosted in that OS, not in your El Capitan OS. TunTap will be sharing the virtual ethernet card in the VM between Mountain Lion and SheepShaver.

The networking bits can be tricky, as there's more than one way to go about it -- especially with multiple layers of abstraction like we're discussing. It seems to me that since you won't have anything else happening in your guest VM, you could theoretically just bridge SheepShaver right through it (meaning that the two won't see each other), and still be fine, as your host OS and SheepShaver will still see each other just fine. Basically, you'd be using VirtualBox to perform the TunTap task for you.

Oh yes, and once you've got it all set up, use VBoxManage from the command line to run your guest VM in "headless" mode; you can just keep it running in the background, and use ARD to connect to it from the host should you need to configure anything. For that matter, you could use VNC or Timbuktu or similar to connect from the host directly to OS 9, and never bring up the guest VM GUI again once you've got it set up.

[Ronald P. Regensburg]

Based on your current setup, I'm tempted to suggest putting this off until things actually break,

Seems to me a very good advice for now. Things run in OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) and may still run in OSX 10.12. Apple will support 10.11 until 10.13 is released. That will give us at least two years respite.

[MacUser]

Based on your current setup, I'm tempted to suggest putting this off until things actually break,

Seems to me a very good advice for now. Things run in OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) and may still run in OSX 10.12. Apple will support 10.11 until 10.13 is released. That will give us at least two years respite.

+1
Yes, until things are broken I will stick to my present workflow.
To make sure it will not be a total surprise when Sheepshaver is no longer working in a future OSX version, and to have enough time to find a different workflow and for getting things clear I joined Apple's OSX beta program.
For this reason I posted my findings in this thread.

Wim

[Old-School-BBSer]

Well, my friends, it is a bit too late, because I have already taken the plunge . . . with some limited success.

The following is a bit long and detailed, but I hope that the experienced users amongst us will take the time to read it all, and hopefully help me to figure out how to get networking set up properly in VirtualBox/Mountain Lion/SheepShaver.

First the good news . . .

Yesterday, after trying out about three different methods, I finally succeeded in converting the "InstallESD.dmg" image that is found inside the "Install OS X Mountain Lion" installer app into a bootable single-layer DVD which VirtualBox finally recognized.

As a result, I was able to successfully install Mountain Lion 10.8 in VirtualBox.

In addition, I was able to set up my Apple ID account, log into the App Store, and update to Mountain Lion 10.8.5 from within VirtualBox.

Now the not-so-nice news . . .

The biggest issue is networking, as I knew it would be from the start.

If I set VirtualBox's network preferences to "Bridged Adapter", I DO HAVE Internet access within Mountain Lion, AND the shared network folders that I set up in both Mountain Lion and El Capitan also work as expected.

However, with "Bridged Adapter" selected, I appear to lose Internet connectivity inside my SheepShaver setup. I cannot connect to other Hotline servers, connect to websites in my web browser, etc., for example.

I suspect that it has to to do with SheepShaver's preferences on the "Miscellaneous" tab; specifically the "Ethernet interface" setting. Normally, with TunTap installed on El Capitan, I use "tap0" in that field, and I have no problem connecting to the Internet from inside of SheepShaver, and folks can likewise connect to both my BBS and Hotline server.

However, with "Bridged Adapter" selected, I have tried en0, en1, tap0 and tap1 in that "Ethernet Interface" setting, and I still can't get Internet access inside of SheepShaver. And, as I read some time ago, using slirp won't work in my situation.

QUESTION: Does anyone have any ideas regarding this?

Moving on, when I use "Bridged Adapter", Mountain Lion is assigned the internal LAN IP address of 10.0.1.4. However, inside SheepShaver, OS 9.0.4's internal LAN IP address is also manually set to 10.0.1.4, which is what it uses when I run SheepShaver straight under El Capitan with TunTap installed.

Also, when using "Bridged Adapter", in Mountain Lion's "Network" preferences pane, the only network option available is "Ethernet", and it says 10.0.1.4 as well.

BTW, in Mountain Lion's "Network" preference pane, I have it set to "Using DHCP", while in OS 9.0.4's "TCP/IP" control panel, I have it set to manually use 10.0.1.4.

QUESTION: Do I need to change OS 9.0.4's internal LAN IP address to something like 10.0.1.5, so that it doesn't conflict with Mountain Lion's LAN IP address? In fact, are Mountain Lion and Ethernet supposed to have the same IP address?

In VirtualBox's "Network Adapter/Bridged Adapter" settings, "Name" is set to "en1:Wi-Fi (AirPort)". However, as I said a minute ago, in SheepShaver's "Ethernet interface" setting, I have it set to "tap0" because when I use SheepShaver straight under El Capitan -- as I have been doing since this past April -- I have to have TunTap installed.

QUESTION: So if I use "Bridged Adapter", do I need to alter anything in the shell script that I use to start up SheepShaver? Currently, it has this in it:

#!/bin/bash
sudo arch -arch i386 /Applications/SheepShaver/SheepShaver.app/Contents/MacOS/SheepShaver & sleep 10
sudo ifconfig bridge0 create sudo
ifconfig bridge0 addm en0
sudo ifconfig bridge0 up
sudo ifconfig bridge0 addm tap0

Currently, it starts up just fine with those settings, but I am wondering if any of that conflicts with the "Bridged Adapter" setting in VirtualBox.

NOTE: I did NOT install TunTap in Mountain Lion, because I was told that it was not needed if I used VirtualBox in "Bridged Adapter" mode.

QUESTION: If I run Mountain Lion in "NAT" mode instead, does that mean that I do need to install TunTap in Mountain Lion? As you will see below, installing TunTap made no difference.

On the other hand . . .

If I set VirtualBox's "Network" preference to "NAT", Mountain Lion's "Network" preference pane changes, and it shows that the Ethernet address is now 10.0.2.15, instead of 10.0.1.4. This address -- 10.0.2.15 -- is also shown in BwanaDik as Mountain Lion's internal IP address.

Furthermore, with "NAT" selected, the router address changes to 10.0.2.2 in Mountain Lion, instead of 10.0.1.1, as it was with the "Bridged Adapter" setting. And BTW, 10.0.1.1 is also the router address that is used in OS 9.0.4's TCP/IP control panel.

While I still have Internet access within Mountain Lion when Virtual Box's "Network" setting is set to "NAT", my networked shared folders no longer work. I cannot connect to them from either end, Mountain Lion or El Capitan.

Furthermore, inside of SheepShaver, Internet connectivity is broken completely. No web browsing, no BBSing, no one connecting to my servers. Nada.

I thought that perhaps this might be because I switched from "Bridged Adapter" to "NAT", and didn't have TunTap installed in Mountain Lion. So, out of curiosity, I installed it and rebooted Mountain Lion, but it made no difference. There is still no Internet connectivity inside of SheepShaver. Using either "NAT" or "Bridged Adapter" with my current settings in Mountain Lion and SheepShaver and OS 9.0.4 just don't seen to work.

There are other options in VirtualBox's "Network" pane. These are:

NAT Network
Internal Network
Host-only Adapter

Would one of these work better?

If so, would I need to make any changes to my SheepShaver startup shell script, or to the "Ethernet interface" field in SheepShaver's settings, or anywhere else?

I know this is a lot, but I hope that someone here can steer me in the right direction. I just want to be prepared for the future of SheepShaver, whatever it may bring us.

Thanks again for your patience and assistance.

A few additional notes . . .

On another note, another minus is that using "Bridged Adapter" brings El Capitan to a crawl. It takes a very long time for apps to launch, for text documents to open, for double-clicking to work, and there is a lot of beachballing.

I only have 4 GB of memory on this machine, but that is more than sufficient when I run SheepShaver straight in El Capitan. I don't run into any of the above sluggish problems.

Apple and other sources state that 2 GB is Mountain Lion's minimum system requirement, and that is what VirtualBox sets it to by default. But I wonder if I can drop Mountain Lion's allocated RAM in VirtualBox to say 1 GB, being as I only intend to run SheepShaver, and my BBS and Hotline server inside of SheepShaver.

I don't know if this severe sluggishness with El Capitan is due to running VirtualBox, or due to Mountain Lion's memory requirements, which just leaves me 2 GB of memory for El Capitan.

The odd thing is, if I switch VirtualBox's "Network" preference from "Bridged Adapter" to "NAT", all of the sluggishness, beachballs, etc., just disappears. I also noticed repeatedly that using "Bridged Adapter" is much more of a memory drain on my computer. I don't know why that is, but it is.

To continue, I am flabbergasted to discover that even though I have El Capitan as the host system, and Mountain Lion as the guest system, I cannot drag and drop files and folders between two Mac OSes. I know that it is due to Apple's legal issues related to Guest Additions, but I still find it ridiculous; particularly when we can drag and drop between an OS X host and a Windows guest system without a problem.

I also discovered that copy and paste between Mountain Lion and El Capitan doesn't work either. I assume that this is because of the Guest Additions issue. In fact, when I try to use command-c, it turns out to be a command to switch VirtualBox's window to scale mode. However, the menu option for "Copy" does work.

Command-v is even worse. It appears to do absolutely nothing. Again, only the paste menu option works within Mountain Lion in VirtualBox.

Other keyboard commands were likewise funky. Instead of creating a new folder, command-shift-n brings up a "Mountain Lion - Session Information" window. Again, the menu option for "New Folder" does work.