Mac OS X’s EULA only allows for usage of OS X Server within VMware Fusion, but with a (relatively) simple script you can modify the darwin.iso to function with OS X client as a guest.1 This script should hypothetically work with Fusion 2.0 and 3.0 on Leopard and Snow Leopard (as both guest and host). Save the following script to a file.

#!/bin/bash
cd "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/isoimages"
mkdir original
mv darwin.iso tools-key.pub *.sig original
perl -n -p -e 's/ServerVersion.plist/SystemVersion.plist/g' < original/darwin.iso > darwin.iso
openssl genrsa -out tools-priv.pem 2048
openssl rsa -in tools-priv.pem -pubout -out tools-key.pub
openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < darwin.iso > darwin.iso.sig
for i in *.iso ; do openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < $i > $i.sig ; done
exit

Now open Terminal and chmod the script to executable.

chmod 755 /path/to/my/script

Finally, execute the script with root privileges.

sudo ./path/to/my/script

This will modify and re-sign the darwin.iso to allow OS X client as a guest. Hat tip to several sources online (which I can no longer remember) that were used to help make this script many moons ago.

  1. Of course, since this is against the license agreement no one is going to use it, right?