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CiscoKid
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESX on ESX question

I know that there are some technical articles on running ESX 3.x on Workstation 6.x and I have created my demo environment on my Dell Latitude D630 with an Intel Core Duo 2 T7800 with 4GB RAM....works wonderfully after following the procedures. I want to take this same principle and apply it to a VMware Virtual Infrastructure in a single server to include enough hardware to run at least 3 VMware ESX 3.5 servers, 1 OpenFiler Server and a Windows 2003 Server running as a test DC/VC 2.5 server. Has anyone had any luck running ESX on ESX?

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virtualdud3
Expert
Expert

My understanding is that only the "Workstation 6" code will allow you to run ESX as a virtual machine.

That being said, I have not yet tried to do so for ESX 3.5. If I had to guess I would say that it won't work.



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dominic7
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I don't think this will work for the time being. One of the necessary components to start the VMkernel on an ESX host is supported network interface, since the only interface you can present to a VM in ESX is considered 'unsupported' even if you got it installed it would fail to boot the VMkernel.

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CiscoKid
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have gotten the VM guest versions of ESX server to boot without any issues it just takes a long time. As for the network interfaces, I went into the VM guest configruation file and changed the interface type to e1000.

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

have you tried a guest on the guest yet, if you know what I mean !!!!!

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
davidhaase
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

any new findings on this topic?

I try to get ESX 3.5 VM running on ESX3i host but it always ends up in a PSOD.

Is somone able to provide a working configuration (.vmx)?

Cheers,

David

„What's Up, Doc?“

-- Pedo mellon a minno --
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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

The only way that you will be able to get ESX running as a ESX guest if of you have a very modern AMD chip with the RVI extensions, if you don't bother wasting your time and energy. install WS 6.51 and then run nested guests

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Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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davidhaase
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Tom,

thanks for the tip. I will try that.

Unfortunately I'm not able to spend award points since i didn't start the thread Smiley Wink

Cheers and have a nice weekend,

David

„What's Up, Doc?“

-- Pedo mellon a minno --
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