ESX 3.5 running as VM on Workstation 6

[spencerralph]

All,

I'm sure that this is not supported but under Workstation 6 it was possible to run ESX 3.0.2 in a VM, this was very usful to just test and check out syntax etc. But 3.5 running in the same why panics when a VM is run.

Any suggestions - i'm hoping that VMware has not knobbled the code to stop it working under workstation.

Regards Spence..

[TomHowarth]

That is correct, I do not know of anybody who has sucessfully run a guest under 3.5 on workstation. The beta for WS6.5 is even worse, ESX itself will not even run

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[spencerralph]

But what i don't understand is why they would do that as it is so useful.

Regards Spence.

[continuum]

[TomHowarth]

Lets give them the benefit of the doubt, ESX running as a guest has always been unsupported. I beleive that 3.5 attempts to access a part of the processor that is not available under a virtualised platform (no doubt somebody will kickin with the technical) also 32 bit VT extension support has been removed from WS6.5 (rumoured to be due to Resource isssues)

however it is not that much of a pain as ESX has a much broarder installable base now with the support of SATA disks

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[TomHowarth]

Ulli, be nice

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[markuk]

has any one got this to work? what is the configuration settings they have used?

[spencerralph]

Tom,

Thanks for that but one thing i don't understand is your statement on WS 6.5 are you saying that the VT enablement on WS 6 that allows 64-bit VMs on a 32-bit host has been removed, and system resource issues or man power.

Spence..

[admin]

Am I reading this correctly, people are unable to run ESX 3.5 or 3i in a Virtual Machine.......I have been running both versions since GA without issue and updated my scripting to build 3.5 in a Virtual Machine.

[spencerralph]

Yes,

you are correct we have not been able to run ESX 3.5 as a VM on WS 6, the VM will run but crash if you load a VM under ESX.

Spence..

[markuk]

have a look at this thread ... it has really helped me not had any problems yet

http://communities.vmware.com/message/841139#841139

[spencerralph]

Have looked at that document and used it for 3.0.1 and 3.0.2 and it works fine but not for 3.5 ( the VM crashes), i have even spoken to xtravirt about it and it was them that suggeseted that VMware had edited the 3.5 code to block it running in a VM.

Spence..

[TomHowarth]

Spence, who at xtravirt did you speak too?

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[spencerralph]

It was a mail from one of there support personel.

Spence..

[markuk]

yeap it crashed .... but it got me to were I need to go to do some documents for now.

It will be interesting to see if this gets some kind of work around.

[admin]

Weird -3.5 and 3i work fab and the vm's on it to as a VM ...I have pinned a screenshot to prove it....am I still missing what you guys are trying to get to?

Its a couple of NT4.0 VMs running on it by the way to keep memory usage low as I'm more concerned with playing with ESX itself

[spencerralph]

Try lanuching a VM with the ESX 3.5 server and see what happens.

[admin]

slap i stand corrected......apologies to the entire universe the vm crashes the esx host

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

Basically, the change in behaviour is because ESX 3.5 has exposed the MMU setting to the guests. this feature is not available in the vCPU that is hosting the virutal ESX but is available on the host machine. so when a guest machine starts the guest sends the processes to the ESX vCPU and it gets passed on to the physical CPU but when it comes back the vCPU on the Guest ESX says what the hell are these and panics the Kernel.

We will be posting a more technical explaination on xtravirt.com in a couple of days.

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[spencerralph]

Tom,

Thanks for the more detailed explanation that is what i was after, but what are the MMU setting used for is it something to do with the new memory controlls that are now passed through in 3.5.

Regards Spence..