Run 64 bit Workstation 7 VM inside ESX 4 VM

[lhundt]

I've been scratching my head for the past hours to see if it was possible to run VMware workstation inside an ESX 4 VM. Our desktop deployment team wants to create their base images to deploy out (like Ghost) inside the server which is virtualized. So far, I found the guide to enable vmware workstation in an esx vm - http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8970

Are there any tricks to allow 64 bit workstation vms in this scenario?

I also noticed that if you run a CPU checker, it reports that the CPU is not VT enabled inside the VM but the outer host is enabled. Does ESX remove VT access from the guest OS? I'm sure we can come up with a workaround but I'm just curious for my own knowledge....Thanks!

Lance

[a_p_]

Sorry, that will not work. You cannot run nested 64-bit guests. VT is set on the hardware/BIOS and is not passed to the virtual machine.

André

[DSeaman · Accepted solution]

Just create your golden image VM directly in a ESX(i) VM. You can use vCenter converter 4.2 to convert the ESXi VM to a Workstation VM, if need be. The project I support is likely going to go this route.....master VM on ESXi, convert to Workstation VM, then capture/deploy with SmartDeploy.

[AntonVZhbankov]

>Does ESX remove VT access from the guest OS?

Let's see how VT works. OS kernel works on Ring 0 (full privileges), user code works above. Before VT virtualization platforms had to use binary rewriting - modifying guest OS code on-the-fly.

What VT does? It actually just introduce Ring -1, so hypervisor can work on Ring -1 and Guest OS kernel can work on usual Ring 0. VT is a must for running 64bit guests, because of technical reasons - fully virtualized 64bit OSes can not work on Ring 1.

VM can not work on level below hypervisor or even on the same level, only above. But since VM is nested, hypervisor 2 (virtual) is working on Ring 0 and have to use binary rewriting, so nested VM have to work on Ring 1 -> 32 bit only.

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MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[lhundt]

Thanks guys for the useful information! @DSeaman we are actually venturing off from Ghost to SmartDeploy for our upcoming Windows 7 deployment. The only thing about not having Workstation run 64 bit VMs is there is an additional step and we like to keep things as simple as possible. What we will probably end up doing is building our master images on a physical machine with Workstation installed. Then we will upload the final image to our virtualized server to deliver the image out.

Does SmartDeploy only work with VMware Workstation or can it use ESX VMs?

Thanks!

Lance

[DSeaman]

I'm not the SmartDeploy guy on the project, so I don't know if it can directly suck in ESX images or not. It does work perfectly fine with Workstation though. Workstation can run 64-bit VMs perfectly fine, if Workstation is running on physical hardware.

[AntonVZhbankov]

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MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru