• Setup OS X.
• Shut it down.
• Clone to Virtual Machine (convention: “osx_amd64_11_0_frozen” for macOS 11.0")
• Snapshot that new frozen VM once to make its vmdk in COW format.

Then, to create more:

• 10.14:

export VMHOST=4
export VMWHICH=b
export VMNAME="mac_10_14_host0${VMHOST}${VMWHICH}"
govc vm.create -m 4096 -c 6 -on=false -net dvPortGroup-Private -g darwin18_64Guest -ds "BOOT_$VMHOST" $VMNAME
govc vm.change -e smc.present=TRUE -e ich7m.present=TRUE -e firmware=efi -e guestinfo.key-host-darwin-10_14=$(cat $HOME/keys/host-darwin-10_14) -e guestinfo.name=$VMNAME -vm $VMNAME
govc device.usb.add -vm $VMNAME
govc vm.disk.attach -vm $VMNAME -link=true -persist=false -ds GGLGLN-A-002-STV1 -disk osx_amd64_10_14_frozen_nfs/osx_amd64_10_14_frozen_nfs_17.vmdk
govc vm.power -on $VMNAME

• MAJOR.MINOR:

Change MAJOR to target major version and MINOR to target minor version (10.12, 10.14, 10.15, and 11.0 are supported)

export MAJOR=10
export MINOR=14
export VMHOST=04
export VMWHICH=b
export GUEST_TYPE=darwin$(expr $MINOR + 4)_64Guest # (14: darwin18, 12: darwin16...)
export VMNAME="mac_${MAJOR}_${MINOR}_amd64_host0${VMHOST}${VMWHICH}"
export SNAPSHOT=$(govc vm.info -json osx_amd64_${MAJOR}_${MINOR}_frozen_nfs | jq -r '.VirtualMachines[0].Layout.Snapshot[0].SnapshotFile|.[]|match(" .+vmdk$").string')
govc vm.create -m 4096 -c 6 -on=false -net dvPortGroup-Private -g darwin16_64Guest -ds "BOOT_$VMHOST" $VMNAME
govc vm.change -e smc.present=TRUE -e ich7m.present=TRUE -e firmware=efi -e guestinfo.key-host-darwin-10_$MINOR=$(cat $HOME/keys/host-darwin-10_${MINOR}) -e guestinfo.name=$VMNAME -vm $VMNAME
govc device.usb.add -vm $VMNAME
govc vm.disk.attach -vm $VMNAME -link=true -persist=false -ds GGLGLN-A-002-STV102 -disk $SNAPSHOT
govc vm.power -on $VMNAME

Other misc notes:

$ govc vm.info -json mac_11_0_amd64_host07a | jq . | grep MacAdd
              "MacAddress": "00:50:56:b4:05:57",

if sleep failing,

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25
sudo pmset sleepnow

pmset -g assertions     # RemovableMedia mounted
system_profiler  # to see which

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1012225 ... doesn‘t seem to work ... but changing from SATA to IDE does make the RemovableMedia assertion go away (but pmset sleepnow stil doesn’t work)