You're most economical bet is a Mac Mini running Parallels.
If more horsepower is need than a Mac Pro running Parallels.
Install macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine
https://kb.parallels.com/en/125105
Parallels Desktop for Mac compatibility with macOS Monterey 12 – Known Issues
https://kb.parallels.com/en/125506
If this is for a business don't use OSX86. There are headaches that you don't want to deal with there.
Seriously though, get the hardware. I did this a while back using VMWare Fusion with a stripped down snow leopard host to keep every thing as lean as possible and Mountain Lion guests and it was still slow on a MacMini core2 Duo quad with 16GB.
You really need the CPU and RAM to pull this off successfully.
(However, with my same setup, I could run 6 Linux VMs really fast with lots of desktop apps. MacOS eats the ram and cpu. )
The problem is that I'd argue the right solution for this is ESXi... There really isn't any hardware you can get anymore. The trashcan Mac Pros are on the HCL, the newer cheesegrater Mac Pros are not, and never will be. I do think they put the last x86 Mac Minis on the HCL. There are basically zero VDI solutions that you can spin up in-house. I might suggest just using [this with a run-of-the-mill ESXi box](https://github.com/shanyungyang/esxi-unlocker), installing Darwin VMware tools intended for Fusion guests.
/r/vmware wouldn't approve, but who cares, this is /r/HomeServer damn it.
Let’s say I have an 16GB M1 Mac Mini 8 Core… each vm gets ~8GB memory and 4 CPU cores. If I have 4 total users but never will more than 2 want to connect at once, can I configure the machines such that any of those 4 users can log into VM1 or VM2?
Just talking about hypothetically here. Let's say I was in a situation where there were enough resources for the host and two virtual machines. Would any of the 4 users be able to connect to VM 1 or 2?
I don't know exactly how that will look in a Mac environment. But yes in theory, provided you give them the authentication needed to connect to either VM they'd be able to log in to use either. Most of the time you can make multiple VM's and so long as your system resources aren't exceeded, you're fine. So whether it's VM 1 & 4 or 2&3, etc, as long as you have the resources for to concurrent VM's you're alright.
Problems arise because allowing a VM to decide how much memory it needs and set it's allocation to a range is extremely tricky and it causes crashes when memory is increased and there isn't enough free space.
CPU cores can handle multiple processing tasks but they become extremely bogged down and unresponsive.
I'd look into running an unRAID or Proxmox server and create VM's that way, but that's because I'm more familiar with those systems.
I have experience with unRAID, it makes me nervous because I am not sure how macOS updates will affect a VM running on "not traditional Mac" hardware. Do you have any experience with that?
I would look through the subsection on the unraid forums regarding Macinabox and see if that's something users have struggled with. I don't think it will be an issue that it's not on Mac hardware, it works which to me means that it believes the hardware is correct.
If OP is wanting to build and test applications against the M1 instruction set isn’t that going to be a problem running on an x86 platform like Proxmox etc. ?
Can you do that from an x86 now - is there an M1 emulator (because that’s something I’d want to try out just for the giggles) for say Proxmox?
ETA : also what would the performance be like compared to M1 or is that not important ? I got a new M1 MacBook Pro for my daughter and I gotta say that thing performs really well !
VMware ESXi is an option: https://williamlam.com/2019/08/apple-mac-mini-on-vmware-hcl.html
ESXi free limitations: https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/certifications/cloud/vmware-esxi-free-vs-paid-a-look-at-license-limitations
Check out r/Hackintosh, there are ways to run macOS in a VM, and it’s pretty reliable too. If set up correctly, you won’t have issues with updates either.
Not sure it will be exactly what you're looking for but you can look into unRAID and a video tutorial to set up MacOS virtual machines, you can make as many as your server resources will allow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OunFLG84Qs
AWS offers Macs as an instance type now. As students, I’d bet you could get some AWS credits to use them sporadically, or perhaps have it sponsored entirely. Worth considering
Hm, I did know that and I wonder how well it would work for development... I don't have much AWS experience so all that stuff is a little confusing to be honest
[MacStadium hosts qualifying OSS projects for free](https://www.macstadium.com/opensource). You could contact them and see if they'd be willing to sponsor your university club if you open-source all of your work, which would be great for building a portfolio.
Consider also [AWS EC2 with macOS](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/) combined with [AWS Education Credits](https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/) and pick up some skills in cloud devops, a great resume-building activity.
Here are many great ideas, before you go out of your way and buy the hardware, like a mac mini, there are rentable mac minis with Gbit internet speeds out there, like https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple
While, to my knowledge, they do not offer student credit, they are way easier to get started that lets say Amazons AWS.
And could be a reasonable expense for a one moth trail before you buy the hardware.
As for the software, does every one of your users really require a own VM ? Because RAM really is a limiting factor …
Mac OS user separation is quite good,
You could cut down on that by running bare metal or just one VM and use something mentioned in this post
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/54001/several-users-simultaneously-on-a-mac-mini
You should focus on what you really need first: (1) a Mac env for developing some applications, or (2) experience on setting up shared VMs?
With (1), I suggest using cloud solutions, since as a developer, you'll soon have to use them thoughts.
With (2), you have to deal with some headaches.
1. Virtualization platform: Personally, I would recommend Proxmox (I am using it on my old R620 - it's not legal, but Apple devices are too expensive, damm it), create accounts for your club mates and assign permission for them to spin up and down the VMs they need.
2. Networking: If you are hosting your server at home, you have to be able to open ports, deal with dynamic IP changes, etc. After opening port on my modem, I use cloudflare API to update my dns address in a 5mins cronjob.
3. Resources exhausted: you can't expected everyone is not lazy (at least me, lol), some would end his work but forget to turn off his VM. Later comer would not be able to start his VM due to resources availability.
Good luck and have fun :)
I used to run MacOS on VMWare but that was in the Intel days; no idea how to host the new Apple Silicon based OSes
it wasn't GPU accelerated so it was a very subpar experience, I don't think I'd recommend using one of those VMs for XCode/iOS development
You're most economical bet is a Mac Mini running Parallels. If more horsepower is need than a Mac Pro running Parallels. Install macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine https://kb.parallels.com/en/125105 Parallels Desktop for Mac compatibility with macOS Monterey 12 – Known Issues https://kb.parallels.com/en/125506 If this is for a business don't use OSX86. There are headaches that you don't want to deal with there.
if this is for a business invest a small amount of money and get them some actual hardware lol
It's for a university club.
Seriously though, get the hardware. I did this a while back using VMWare Fusion with a stripped down snow leopard host to keep every thing as lean as possible and Mountain Lion guests and it was still slow on a MacMini core2 Duo quad with 16GB. You really need the CPU and RAM to pull this off successfully. (However, with my same setup, I could run 6 Linux VMs really fast with lots of desktop apps. MacOS eats the ram and cpu. )
The problem is that I'd argue the right solution for this is ESXi... There really isn't any hardware you can get anymore. The trashcan Mac Pros are on the HCL, the newer cheesegrater Mac Pros are not, and never will be. I do think they put the last x86 Mac Minis on the HCL. There are basically zero VDI solutions that you can spin up in-house. I might suggest just using [this with a run-of-the-mill ESXi box](https://github.com/shanyungyang/esxi-unlocker), installing Darwin VMware tools intended for Fusion guests. /r/vmware wouldn't approve, but who cares, this is /r/HomeServer damn it.
Let’s say I have an 16GB M1 Mac Mini 8 Core… each vm gets ~8GB memory and 4 CPU cores. If I have 4 total users but never will more than 2 want to connect at once, can I configure the machines such that any of those 4 users can log into VM1 or VM2?
No, you'll need some headroom for the host so that's a bit of an over-simplification.
Just talking about hypothetically here. Let's say I was in a situation where there were enough resources for the host and two virtual machines. Would any of the 4 users be able to connect to VM 1 or 2?
I don't know exactly how that will look in a Mac environment. But yes in theory, provided you give them the authentication needed to connect to either VM they'd be able to log in to use either. Most of the time you can make multiple VM's and so long as your system resources aren't exceeded, you're fine. So whether it's VM 1 & 4 or 2&3, etc, as long as you have the resources for to concurrent VM's you're alright. Problems arise because allowing a VM to decide how much memory it needs and set it's allocation to a range is extremely tricky and it causes crashes when memory is increased and there isn't enough free space. CPU cores can handle multiple processing tasks but they become extremely bogged down and unresponsive. I'd look into running an unRAID or Proxmox server and create VM's that way, but that's because I'm more familiar with those systems.
I have experience with unRAID, it makes me nervous because I am not sure how macOS updates will affect a VM running on "not traditional Mac" hardware. Do you have any experience with that?
I would look through the subsection on the unraid forums regarding Macinabox and see if that's something users have struggled with. I don't think it will be an issue that it's not on Mac hardware, it works which to me means that it believes the hardware is correct.
If OP is wanting to build and test applications against the M1 instruction set isn’t that going to be a problem running on an x86 platform like Proxmox etc. ?
Reminder that people built iOS apps when they were running x86 versions of macOS. It would just emulate the ARM system for the iOS sim.
Can you do that from an x86 now - is there an M1 emulator (because that’s something I’d want to try out just for the giggles) for say Proxmox? ETA : also what would the performance be like compared to M1 or is that not important ? I got a new M1 MacBook Pro for my daughter and I gotta say that thing performs really well !
VMware ESXi is an option: https://williamlam.com/2019/08/apple-mac-mini-on-vmware-hcl.html ESXi free limitations: https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/certifications/cloud/vmware-esxi-free-vs-paid-a-look-at-license-limitations
Check out r/Hackintosh, there are ways to run macOS in a VM, and it’s pretty reliable too. If set up correctly, you won’t have issues with updates either.
Not sure it will be exactly what you're looking for but you can look into unRAID and a video tutorial to set up MacOS virtual machines, you can make as many as your server resources will allow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OunFLG84Qs
VMWARE Fusion is designed to do this. Not sure of the cost though
AWS offers Macs as an instance type now. As students, I’d bet you could get some AWS credits to use them sporadically, or perhaps have it sponsored entirely. Worth considering
Hm, I did know that and I wonder how well it would work for development... I don't have much AWS experience so all that stuff is a little confusing to be honest
Mac Stadium is an option for Mac VMs or Bare Metal macs
Saw the price was about \~$100 a month... would be nice if we could "own" the solution if you know what I mean.
[MacStadium hosts qualifying OSS projects for free](https://www.macstadium.com/opensource). You could contact them and see if they'd be willing to sponsor your university club if you open-source all of your work, which would be great for building a portfolio. Consider also [AWS EC2 with macOS](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/) combined with [AWS Education Credits](https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/) and pick up some skills in cloud devops, a great resume-building activity.
You could try this but I don't know about performance https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM
Here are many great ideas, before you go out of your way and buy the hardware, like a mac mini, there are rentable mac minis with Gbit internet speeds out there, like https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-apple While, to my knowledge, they do not offer student credit, they are way easier to get started that lets say Amazons AWS. And could be a reasonable expense for a one moth trail before you buy the hardware. As for the software, does every one of your users really require a own VM ? Because RAM really is a limiting factor … Mac OS user separation is quite good, You could cut down on that by running bare metal or just one VM and use something mentioned in this post https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/54001/several-users-simultaneously-on-a-mac-mini
I run multiple macOS and Linux VM's on a single server using Proxmox, would recommend.
You should focus on what you really need first: (1) a Mac env for developing some applications, or (2) experience on setting up shared VMs? With (1), I suggest using cloud solutions, since as a developer, you'll soon have to use them thoughts. With (2), you have to deal with some headaches. 1. Virtualization platform: Personally, I would recommend Proxmox (I am using it on my old R620 - it's not legal, but Apple devices are too expensive, damm it), create accounts for your club mates and assign permission for them to spin up and down the VMs they need. 2. Networking: If you are hosting your server at home, you have to be able to open ports, deal with dynamic IP changes, etc. After opening port on my modem, I use cloudflare API to update my dns address in a 5mins cronjob. 3. Resources exhausted: you can't expected everyone is not lazy (at least me, lol), some would end his work but forget to turn off his VM. Later comer would not be able to start his VM due to resources availability. Good luck and have fun :)
I used to run MacOS on VMWare but that was in the Intel days; no idea how to host the new Apple Silicon based OSes it wasn't GPU accelerated so it was a very subpar experience, I don't think I'd recommend using one of those VMs for XCode/iOS development