Nested hypervisors?
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Which hypervisors can be nested inside each other?
I'm thinking primarily about KVM, Xen, Hyper-V.Purpose is of course for learning and playing with hypervisors, not production.
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KVM in Hyper-V 2016
https://timothygruber.com/hyper-v-2/run-a-nested-vm-on-kvm-qemu-vm-in-hyper-v/ -
@pete-s
VMware Workstation and Player can do it, so you dont have to bother with getting extra separated hardware.
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@pete-s said in Nested hypervisors?:
Which hypervisors can be nested inside each other?
I'm thinking primarily about KVM, Xen, Hyper-V.Purpose is of course for learning and playing with hypervisors, not production.
I know for a fact Hyper-V, KVM, and VMWare do it.
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@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
@pete-s
VMware Workstation and Player can do it, so you dont have to bother with getting extra separated hardware.
Does the free version of Workstation Player allow nested hypervisors?
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Xen provides nesting.
Hyper-V provides nesting.
KVM provides "working but experimental" nesting. -
@black3dynamite said in Nested hypervisors?:
Workstation Player
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4032
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@scottalanmiller said in Nested hypervisors?:
KVM provides "working but experimental" nesting.
Which is fine... because I can't imagine having to use it outside of testing or lab scenarios.
I didn't know KVM still had it in experimental mode:
https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Nested_Guests
For completeness:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/using-nested-virtualization-in-kvm/ -
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Virutalbox is kinda useless as basic things like USB 3 drivers require a 5000$ license.
ESXi has supported nesting longer than all of them, and has a few production use cases for hypervisors on hypervisors.
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@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
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@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
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@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
Vendors never require a specific hypervisor. If they did, you certainly wouldn't nest it. And if it was a consideration, you'd find a different vendor.
Really, it's for lab/testing.
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@obsolesce said in Nested hypervisors?:
Vendors never require a specific hypervisor.
That's actually not true. I have seen at least one that required ESXi, but you could make the caveat that there are no GOOD vendors.
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@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
The only realistic "production" usage for nesting, would be if you for example want to give a Dev his/her own hypervisor to cycle through VMs... or some similar situation where you can't dedicate hardware to.
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@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
I haven't ever had the need to even look at attempting this so I don't know. But lets say you're a Hyper-V shop and have a business requirement you have to run an appliance of some kind that is tailored to ESXi, this would be a case where you'd likely nest.
Rather than building another hypervisor fleet.
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@obsolesce said in Nested hypervisors?:
Really, it's for lab/testing.
Alright, I meant real-world but I didn't say that. That's on me.
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@obsolesce said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
The only realistic "production" usage for nesting, would be if you for example want to give a Dev his/her own hypervisor to cycle through VMs... or some similar situation where you can't dedicate hardware to.
Is it common for a Dev to need access to the hypervisor themselves? Sounds weird but I don't work with devs a lot (yet)
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@obsolesce said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
The only realistic "production" usage for nesting, would be if you for example want to give a Dev his/her own hypervisor to cycle through VMs... or some similar situation where you can't dedicate hardware to.
Even in this case, would nesting be required?
Why not do permission based limitations so you can provide a Dev with access to create/destroy as many VM's as he/she needs within the constraints of your pool or resource limits?
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@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@dustinb3403 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@wirestyle22 said in Nested hypervisors?:
@emad-r said in Nested hypervisors?:
Yup go figure for value, Virtualbox has no intention of doing this amazing feature since 2011
Maybe I'm missing something but why in the world would I ever want to use nested hypervisors? Vendor requirements?
If a vendor is stating that they only support a specific guest OS on a specific Hypervisor they had better be supporting the entire stack and not just an application that is on the guest. . .
What scenario is a nested hypervisor useful in any way?
I haven't ever had the need to even look at attempting this so I don't know. But lets say you're a Hyper-V shop and have a business requirement you have to run an appliance of some kind that is tailored to ESXi, this would be a case where you'd likely nest.
Rather than building another hypervisor fleet.
Nested (virtual) ESXi is not officially supported by VMWare, so that's not a production scenario anyways.
