Nesting VMware Server 2 inside a ESXi 5.1 VM

[lshelton]

Greetings,

For historical development reasons I need to support several Linux hosts running VMware Server 2.0. I have successfully virtualized the Linux hosts onto ESXi 5.1, but when I attempt to power up the VM I get the message "You may not power on a virtual machine in a virtual machine"

I have added the vhv.enable = "TRUE" to the /etc/vmware/config file.

I have found lots of discussion about Workstation, Hyper-V and ESX inside of ESX, etc, but nothing regarding VMware Server.  I understand that it's EOLed, but was hoping that someone might have some insight on this.

Thanks,

Lewis

[admin]

lshelton wrote:

I have added the vhv.enable = "TRUE" to the /etc/vmware/config file.

You should remove the vhv.enable line from /etc/vmware/config.  This setting should be applied on a per-VM basis rather than system-wide.

For the nested VMs, you need to specify:

vmx.allowNested = TRUE

This setting can be in the system-wide configuration file for the guest that's running Server 2.  Since you're running Server 2 under Linux, that would be the /etc/vmware/config file in the Linux guest.

[lshelton]

Great!  That enabled me to power up the VM.  But now I've not no networking from the VM.  Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Datto]

Engaged promiscuous mode on the vswitch of your physical ESXi 5.1 host. That will allow the network of your VMs to see the outside world.

Datto

[lshelton]

Thanks!

Lewis

[sweepsd]

Hi

I have a similar situation but running VMWare Server 2 on Windows 2003, where and which files would I need to alter for the VM to start (ESXi host or Windows 2003 server hosting VMware server).  The reason is for our DR solution which involves restoring to ESXi 5.1.

After restoring the original server in a VM environment the virtual machine won't start with you may not power a virtual machine in a virtual machine.

Many Thanks

Andy

[admin]

You should add the following configuration option to the .vmx file of each nested VM:

vmx.allowNested = TRUE

Alternatively, this can go into the system-wide configuration file of the outer guest OS running VMware Server.  That would be /etc/vmware/config on Linux or C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Server\config.ini on Windows.

[sweepsd]

Thanks - it worked a treat