Ошибка kvm virtualization configured but not available

Last edited: Apr 2, 2021

So, one of the tasks I had to complete this past week was: Install an ESXi hypervisor in a virtual machine, on top of a Proxmox VE 4 infrastructure. This post documents the process (since I wasn’t able to find a complete guide, I wrote one : ).

Why ESXi inside of Proxmox?

Test? Laboratory? Proof of Concept? Well the reasons behind this setup may vary, but if you’re going to do this, avoid it in production. From my tests the performance is comparable, but still you will get a lot of headaches and lose many of the benefits a vSphere environment has to offer. But first things first:

Requirements

The first thing to look at is requirements, you will need:

• A Proxmox node capable of Hardware Assisted Virtualization. (Intel: VT-x ; AMD: AMD-V)
• QEMU >= 2.3.0
• Kernel >= 3.19.0-21
• At least 4GB of RAM for Proof of Concept; 16GB of RAM to add vCenter Server Appliance and another ESXi host.
• Patience and this guide : )

During this process I used an Intel CPU, Proxmox VE 4.2, pve-qemu-kvm 2.4_14, kernel 4.4.6-1-pve and ESXi 6.0.

Although you shouldn’t encounter any problem with a slightly different environment or a diffrent version of ESXi, it is always best to get the latest software.

Enable nested KVM on host

The first thing you need to do is SSH into the node you plan to install ESXi on. Once in determine the processor:

model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1245 v5 @ 3.50GHz

In this case I had an Intel CPU, if you have AMD it is not a problem, follow the appropriate tab:

options kvm ignore_msrs=y
options kvm-intel nested=Y ept=Y

# modprobe -r kvm-intel kvm; modprobe kvm kvm-intel

options kvm ignore_msrs=y
options kvm-amd nested=Y ept=Y

# modprobe -r kvm-amd kvm; modprobe kvm kvm-amd

Creating the Virtual Machine

This step is quite straightforward: you just need to create the new virtual machine, but you need to pay attention to three options:

• OS Type must be “Other OS Types“.
• CPU Type must be “host“.
• Network Type must be “VMWare vmxnet3“.

Now, take note of the machine id that you used during the installation. SSH in the node hosting the newly created virtual machine and edit the file named: /etc/pve/qemu-server/YOURVMID.conf (of course replace YOURVMID with the ID of the virtual machine you created). And add at the end of the file:

args: -machine vmport=off

In this way you should be able to complete the ESXi installation without problems. However, when you will try starting your first virtual machine, you will notice that you can’t start virtual machines inside of the ESXi host.

Enabling Nested Virtualization inside ESXi

You will notice that you won’t be able to start virtual machines inside of your new ESXi, that is because you would have to add: vmx.allowNested = “TRUE” to each and every virtual machine inside of that host. That doesn’t sit well with me. The first thing you need to do is to enable SSH on the ESXi host.

Now you have to SSH into the ESXi host and edit (nano and vi are available) the file /etc/vmware/config and append the following vmx.allowNested = “TRUE”. Reboot the host and voilà! You should be able to spawn machines correctly now.

Conclusion

It might not be the best for performance, but this setup is pretty good for proof of concept and laboratories if you already have an existing environment. I was even able to install vCenter Server Appliance though with a bit of pain.Thanks to Jitze Couperus for the amazing image on the top.

Thanks to: Matt’s blog and The Perils and Triumphs of Being a Geek blog, from which I gained many information that are part of this guide.

Image courtesy of mark | marksei

I got fix for this issue : the details of the issue fix are as follows :

KVM Software tools should be on the controller

patterns-sles-kvm_server — KVM Host Server 12-58.8

patterns-sles-kvm_server-32bit — KVM Host Server

patterns-sles-kvm_tools — KVM Virtualization Host and tools

patterns-sles-kvm_tools-32bit — KVM Virtualization Host and tools

qemu-kvm — Kernel-based Virtual Machine

virt-v2v — Convert a virtual machine to run on KVM

yast2-vm — Configure Hypervisor and Tools for Xen and KVM

check the hardware requirement as mentioned below:

1.1. Hardware Requirements¶
Currently, SUSE only supports KVM full virtualization on x86_64 hosts. KVM is designed around hardware virtualization

features included in AMD (AMD-V) and Intel (VT-x) CPUs. It supports virtualization features of chipsets, and PCI devices,

such as an I/O Memory Mapping Unit (IOMMU) and Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)).

You can test whether your CPU supports hardware virtualization with the following command:

egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo
If this command returns no output, your processor either does not support hardware virtualization, or this feature has been disabled in the BIOS.

The following Web site identifies processors which support hardware virtualization:

how to enable the vx-t in virtual machine :

https://forum.ivorde.com/kvm-nested-in-vmware-esxi-5-5-enable-guest-hypervisor-vmx-svm-flags-without-vsphere-web-client-

t19773.html

GO to the VMS vmdk folders and edit .vmx file and add the following flag in that file and save it.

vhv.enable = «TRUE»

Follow the commands below to restart the VM and reboot the machine.

/vmfs/volumes/53071ba5-6f9682d4-5898-002590883ef6/SLES 12 VM # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep -i sles
15 SLES-82 [datastore1] SLES 1/SLES 1.vmx sles11_64Guest vmx-08
59 SLES 12 VM [datastore1] SLES 12 VM/SLES 12 VM.vmx sles11_64Guest vmx-08
/vmfs/volumes/53071ba5-6f9682d4-5898-002590883ef6/SLES 12 VM # vim-cmd vmsvc/reload 59
/vmfs/volumes/53071ba5-6f9682d4-5898-002590883ef6/SLES 12 VM #

Reboot your machine and try to start your controller it will work.

Thanks
Nagesh