VirtualSMC
Advanced Apple SMC emulator in the kernel. Requires Lilu for full functioning.
Features
- Supports macOS 10.8 and newer (10.9 and newer is recommended)
- Implements MMIO protocol and interrupt-based responses for compatibility with modern OS
- Properly reports key attributes and r/w protection in the keys
- Allows tuning on per-model basis and allows to use different SMC generations
- Extensible by the plugins for sensor and key addition support
- Enables
smcdebug=XXboot argument support on 10.9 - Replaces hardware SMC it finds (to disable SMC entirely you need to flash a dedicated firmware)
Boot arguments
- Add
-vsmcdbgto enable debug printing (available in DEBUG binaries). - Add
-vsmcoffto switch off all the Lilu enhancements. - Add
-vsmcbetato enable Lilu enhancements on unsupported os (10.13 and below are enabled by default). - Add
-vsmcrptto report about missing SMC keys to the system log. - Add
-vsmccompto prefer existing hardware SMC implementation if found. - Add
vsmcgen=Xto force exposing X-gen SMC device (1 and 2 are supported). - Add
vsmchbkp=Xto set HBKP dumping mode (0 - off, 1 - normal, 2 - without encryption). - Add
vsmcslvl=Xto set value serialisation level (0 - off, 1 - normal, 2 - with sensitive data (default)). - Add
smcdebug=0xffto enable AppleSMC debug information printing. - Add
watchdog=0to disable WatchDog timer (if you get accidental reboots).
Credits
- Apple for macOS
- netkas for the original idea of creating a software SMC emulator
- CupertinoNet for reversing most of MMIO protocol and SMC headers
- Alex Ionescu for the initial reverse of SMC firmware
- 07151129 for co-devoloping VirtualSMC and invaluable help during the research
- lvs1974 for developing laptop sensor support
- usr-sse2 for developing laptop sensor support
- joedmru for developing fans and voltage sensor support
- theopolis for smc-fuzzer tool
- kokke for tiny-AES-c
- vit9696 for Lilu.kext and this software
- Additional big thanks go to all the contributors and researchers involved in Apple SMC exploration!