How can I nest a VM within another VM in VM Workstation 16 Pro?

[jefazo92]

Hi everyone,

I have VM Workstation 16 Pro with a student license. It has Ubuntu installed but if I want to nest it with a Windows 7 VM (which would be running in the Ubuntu VM), do I need to install VM again in my Ubuntu VM? As a side note, I have Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI enabled. Thank you in advance.

[scott28tt]

How else would Ubuntu run.a VM? Does it have a hypervisor of it’s own?

[jefazo92]

Hi @scott28tt thank you very much for your reply. I'm just using VMware hypervisor for Ubuntu (I have Windows Hyper-V deactivated). Therefore, how may I install another VM within Ubuntu? Will my VMware workstation pro 16 allow me to do this with the same student license I have right now.

[scott28tt]

Why do you need to nest? Why not run Windows 7 as a VM on your host OS with Workstation?

[jefazo92]

I am trying to install Cuckoo to analyse malware for my assignment and I need to run a Windows 7 VM within an Ubuntu VM. That is why I need to use nested VMs.

[CarltonR]

It would appear that you have two basic options, Nested and a 'Private' setup . . . although it's not really clear why you need this to run your analyser !

Nested: you can Nest VMware Workstation within another, but with quite a performance hit.  In your setup you could have your VMware Workstation Pro on the host, with the Ubuntu VM in which you have VMware Workstation Player installed, then create a Win 7 VM within this.  But please don't come back to this forum complaining of poor performance.

Private: The other alternative would be to setup within your current VMware Workstation Pro two VMs, one with Ubuntu and the other with Win 7, and setup with a private network connection, appropriately configured, between the two VMs.

[jefazo92]

@CarltonR  I'm interested in the Private Network option. I will try the nested VM nonetheless just to see how it goes. Would you mind to tell me how I could set up a private network between various VM instances? Or at least point me to a tutorial which explains how to set it up? I would really appreciate it.

[a_p_]

You can create a "LAN segment" to which you then only connect the two VMs.
A LAN segment can be created from within a VM's settings for the virtual network adapter.

André