Disable System Integrity Protection on OS X running on VMware
I know this is an older question but I came across it looking for a solution to this problem so I figured I would submit an answer that contains all of the info I came across in one place.
Background
My environment
Host

Windows 10
VMWare Workstation 12 (patched to run macOS)

Guest

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4

I originally tried adding macosguest.forceRecoveryModeInstall = &quot;TRUE&quot; to my .vmx config. This allowed me to boot into recovery and could disable SIP but then I couldn't get the VM to boot normally, even after removing that line.
The solution to this problem I found was to just delete the .nvram file. Unfortunately, that's where the flag to disable SIP is stored so when my VM came back up SIP was enabled again.
My Solution

From the Terminal, run the following commands (thanks to G5tube for this suggestion)
 sudo nvram &quot;recovery-boot-mode=unused&quot;
 sudo reboot recovery

The second command will reboot your Mac instantly, so better save any unfinished work first.

Once the Mac has rebooted into the Recovery / Installer system (you may have to choose your language first): From the menu bar, click Utilities &gt; Terminal

Run csrutil disable from the terminal, followed by reboot

Once your VM has rebooted normally you can verify that SIP was disabled by opening a terminal and running csrutil status


To turn SIP back on, follow the same steps as above but run csrutil enable at the recovery terminal instead.