"Operation not supported" when creating VMs in nested virtualisation

[ldiciolla]

Hi everybody,

I'm quite new to ESX so I decided to give it a try by installing it nested into VMWare Worktation 10 for Linux.

My CPU is an i7-4960x with 64GB RAM so VT-x/EPT went automatically. Gave 16GB to ESX.

Configured networking, attached some NFS filesystems, to the newly created datacentre, for storage (exported from my Ubuntu 13.10 base OS) and attached my virtual ESX to it (through vCenter appliance).

What's odd is that I tried to create a Windows 2008 R2 VM in ESX but the installation won't start an the "operation not supported" appears on the vshere web management.

I'm stuck there trying to find a reason for that.

I'd be really glad if anybody out there could help me resolve this puzzle.

Thanks in advance.

[admin]

Are you passing through any USB devices from the host to the ESXi guest?

[ldiciolla]

I guess yes because the only HW I deleted from the VM config was the floppy and attached the ISO from the NFS storage for installation. By the way ESX version is 5.5.

[admin · Accepted solution]

Try deleting the USB controller.

[ldiciolla]

From the ESXi guest VM or from the W2K8 profile?

Anyway I'll try it out and let you know.

[ldiciolla]

Jmattson, thank you!!!

As I deleted the usb controller from the ESXi virtual server all started working.

[admin]

Sorry for the big hammer.  I suspect that ESXi didn't like some USB device that was getting passed through to it.  A USB network interface, perhaps?

[ldiciolla]

found this article that should unfold the arcane:

VMware KB: Applying host profile fails with the error: Operation not supported

Thanks again

Leo