I am stuck in my Vsphere 5.1 environment. Please help.

[aioffe23]

Dear Vmware pro's,

I need help.  I am studying Vsphere 5.1 and have created a small lab for this purpose.  Presently I am taking a 5.1 CBT Nuggets course to learn about the different components of Vsphere and how they are used.  However, the instructor doesn't get in to the details of the correct setup sometimes and presently I find myself stuck on something.  Let me start by telling you what my setup is:

I have 1 physical server (I7-4770 Quadcore 3.40Ghz, 16 Gig's of Ram, 1 TB HD, 2 NIC's).  I have Esxi 5.1 (Evaluation copy) that I am running on this physical server (booting of a USB drive).  I have Vsphere Client 5.1 running on my client laptops that I access/work in my environment.  I currently have 4 VM's created.  2 of them are Linux and Windows 7.  2 are Windows 2012 Server R2.  One of my Windows 2012 Server VM's is my DNS server and has Active Directory on it.  I have used it to create my domain.  The second Windows 2012 Server is the one that I am currently working on.  I have installed VCenter Server 6.0 on it (I din't have 5.1 file and the evaluation that I found was 6.0, which the VMware team said would work fine).  Currently, I am trying to follow the instructor in installing Esxi 5.1 in a VM directly from this VM server.  Basically, his course is guiding me to use Workstation in order to create a VM directly off the server (as far as I understand).  He creates the VM and sets it to boot from a VMvisor installer 5.1 ISO.  I have no problem creating this VM, but as soon as I choose to power it on in Workstation, it gives me the following error: 

This virtual machine is configured for 64-bit guest operating systems.  However, 64-bit operation is not possible.  This host does not support Intel VT-x.  For more information, see http://vmware.com/info?id=152.

I have tried going into this link and browsed google for a solution, however, so far, my efforts have been futile.  I have checked the BIOS of my physical Server, Virtualization technology is Enabled, vt-d is also enabled.  There is no vt-x option, which I thought is just Virtualization Technology.  I have also gone into the BIOS of the virtual machine that I am running my Windows Server 2012 R2 on and have my VCenter Server and Workstation installed on.  I am unable to find any options for Virtualization in this particular BIOS.  I was thinking that it is possible that My physical CPU is somehow limiting me and that maybe I need to replace my CPU, but I am not sure.  Please help if you know what to do.  If you have any questions for me, please write to aioffe23@gmail.com or directly reply to this post.  Thank you in advance.

Alexander

[a_p_]

Please take a look at Running Nested VMsRunning Nested VMs which contains the information required to run virtual ESXi hosts. It's likely "Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to the guest operating system." which is missing in the ESXi VM's configuration.

André

PS: Discussion moved from vSphere 5.1 to Nested Virtualization

[aioffe23]

Thank you so much a.p. !!!!! It took some browsing around and creating a new VM, because the options "Expose hardware-assisted virtualization to the guest operating system." were greyed out for the VM's that I have already built and I could not enable them.  I created a new VM, put Windows Server 2012 on it and was able to check that option.  Now I am in the process of setting up my nested esxi and everything seems to be going well. The only thing is, I have 3 VM's with Windows Server 2012 running (one is DNS, Active Directory; the 2nd is my VCenter Server, and the third for nested guest VM experementation.  I only have 16 GB of Ram, every time I turn the 3 VM's on, my environment is very very slow!  I am thinking of upgrading to 32 GB because I think that is the limit on Vsphere 5.1.  What do you think?    One last question.  Can I run nested vm's of Windows 7 or is it better to do it of a Server OS?  Thank you again!

[a_p_]

I'm actually in the same boat. I'm running my home virtual lab based on VMware Workstation on a PC with an Intel I7-2600 CPU, 16GB RAM, and an SSD to store the VM's. CPU load and disk speed are no problem, it's always the memory which is the limitation.

André

[aioffe23]

I am glad that you are in the same boat!    I wonder, did you have any issues configuring your nested esxi network?  After your hint, I got my esxi 5.1 installed and am in the process of configuring my network.  For some reason, when I set the ip address in the subnet that all my other VM's (not the nested ones) and the rest of my physical hosts are using, it can't connect/ping gateway/ping dns server..... What am I doing wrong? Please let me know if you have any idea or if you need more information.  Thank you in advance.

Alexander

[a_p_]

If you are setting up the lab based on ESXi, you'll have to set "Promiscuous Mode" to "Accept" for the port groups used for the nested VMs traffic. (see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002934)

André

[aioffe23]

Hi Andre!

As usual, your advice has helped me out!  After setting promiscuous mode, the esxi host was able to ping the network addresses of the dns server/gateway...  However, here comes another issue:

When I was creating the ESXI nested guest host in Workstation, the instructor in the video said to add 2 additional network adapters to the 1 that was already in the device list, so I was supposed to have 3 network adapters.  He said to set them all to run in bridged mode.  This is what I did.  Upon completion, for some reason, esxi only sees one network adapter.  However, when the instructor is going through his video, he sees the 3 network adapters.  I need the other 2 because he is going to be showing me how to enable different networks (production, storage, etc....). Do you know how to make esxi recognize the network adapters added in Workstation?  Thank you in advance for all your help!!!

Alexander

[a_p_]

The virtual network adapters may have been created using the wrong virtual hardware type. Check whether you have

ethernet#.virtualDev = "e1000"

for all the network adapters in the ESXi VMs' configuration (.vmx) files.

André