Running ESXi 6.5 VM inside EVE

[rifster]

Hi All,
I'm struggling to set up a VMware lab topology on EVE. I want to deploy nested vCenter Appliance on a virtualized ESXi host. What I need is to enable nested virtualization on this ESXI host in EVE. My PC is running on AMD FX-8320 CPU. All virtualization related features are enabled in BIOS. I searched the Web and found some additional configuration that was required on my PC and on the virtualized ESXi. I applied all of it and I managed to run nested vCenter VM on virtualized ESXi but outside of EVE on system-generic qemu installed from Ubuntu repo.

Following command worked

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/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=/opt/private/esxi-new.qcow2,index=0,media=disk,format=qcow2 -m 16192 -smp 2 -machine accel=kvm -boot dc -cdrom /opt/private/VMware/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.5.0.update01-5969303.x86_64.iso -usb -k pl -usbdevice tablet -vnc :5 -netdev tap,id=hostnet0 -device e1000,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=aa:00:00:00:00:01 -cpu host

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rifster@linux:/opt/unetlab/addons/qemu$ /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 --version
QEMU emulator version 2.5.0 (Debian 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.14), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard

When I want to run it in EVE using the same qcow2 image nested virtualization does not work. I check CPU on EVE virtualized ESXi and it shows HV Support: 0, and on when run on generic qemu it's HV Support: 3.

I'm not an advanced linux user but can this be in any way related to /etc/modprobe.d/qemu-system-x86.conf not being read by EVE qemu? Does it make sense?

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rifster@linux:/opt/unetlab/addons/qemu$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/qemu-system-x86.conf 
options kvm_amd nested=1
options kvm ignore_msrs=1

rifster@linux:/opt/unetlab/addons/qemu$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/kvm-amd 
options kvm ignore_msrs=1
options kvm-amd nested=1

[Uldis (UD)]

AMD CPU are not supported with Qemu !!!
Intel only

Sorry

[rifster]

Hi UD,
How come it works on qemu outside of EVE? I checked this forum and other people tried to run EVE on ESXi. I want to run ESXi on EVE.

[Uldis (UD)]

IT is AMD CPU issue and only.
Yes some run successfully ESXi node inside EVE, and best results are if you have bare install EVE on intel based PC.
AMD itself has problems with Qemu subvirtualization support.
I have to sad you but with AMD you will get no success ere.
Even my ESXi dual intel X5680 server barely can run esxi inside eve.
For such 3rd level wirtualization nee at least e5-26XX series Intel machine with EVE.

Sorry but AMD-> EVE -> ESXi....I do not give any guarantee...

[rifster]

Putting aside what and how is supported I finally managed to force EVE qemu to provide nested virtualization to ESXi running on top. I had to explicitly push -cpu host,svm parameter in qemu_options.