VirtualBox

Opened 15 years ago

Last modified 21 months ago

#4032 closed enhancement

[feature-request] Nested Virtualization: VT-in-VT — at Version 13

Reported by: Technologov Owned by:
Component: VMM Version: VirtualBox 2.2.2
Keywords: Cc: Tao1, vbfun, DNS, Tristan, x5560, Tsso, bluezeak, peterdk, snowch, rdx, Bertrualex, EnesKorukcu, AfUnix, dario, anrichter, Jimbob, adam84luong, Coffee_fan, everflux, purpletoad, jonseymour, ciekawy, GA, ThatOneGuySean, Youness, subdian, veganaiZe, JohnStarich, Michal, todd.vierling, emiliano.bonassi, killmenot, ccarbone, azurtree, amclain, macedemo, GnomeUser, nicorac, schmunk, gael.abadin, paha, krasimir, pixie, Parfait, ikb42, yanp.bugz, hekier, maniankara, RayN, oam, domiel, sab3awy, Canada00, Ashishkel, leonexis, andjohn2000, denka_b, theBruno
Guest type: Windows Host type: other

Description (last modified by Frank Mehnert)

Hi All,

Because more and more virtualization software requires VT (Intel VMX or AMD-V) to run, it makes sense to virtualize it somehow. (at least if host CPU supports hardware VT)

It will allow the following software to run in guests: -Xen (full virtualization mode) -KVM -Hyper-V -Windows Virtual PC -- this is basically a requirement for those who wanna run Windows 7 "XP mode". i.e. It allows for more complete user experience on Win7 guests.

Others can take advantage of it too: -VirtualBox itself :) -VMware Workstation -VMware ESX

-Technologov (yes, I will take advantage of it too :-), yay! )

Change History (9)

comment:1 by Technologov, 15 years ago

opened on 17.5.2009.

comment:2 by Sander van Leeuwen, 15 years ago

priority: majorminor

A lot of work for questionable usefulness. Definitely very low on our priority list.

comment:3 by Technologov, 14 years ago

This is partially related to wish #2988

-Technologov

comment:4 by Technologov, 14 years ago

KVM team has developed (untested) patches for both nested VMX and nested SVM. Maybe some ideas can be taken from those patches.

See: (General Info)

http://avikivity.blogspot.com/2008/09/nested-svm-virtualization-for-kvm.html

and

http://avikivity.blogspot.com/2009/09/nested-vmx-support-coming-to-kvm.html

-Technologov

comment:5 by Technologov, 13 years ago

update: VMware Workstation 8 claims to support this feature !

https://www.vmware.com/support/ws80/doc/releasenotes_workstation_80.html

-Technologov

comment:6 by Technologov, 12 years ago

It seems that Linux 3.1 KVM finally achieved nested VMX.

This feature is yet another filler feature that is a "must-have":

http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/virtual/kvm/nested-vmx.txt

Research paper:

http://www.usenix.org/events/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Ben-Yehuda.pdf

-Technologov

comment:7 by Frank Mehnert, 12 years ago

What you denote as "must have" needs a lot of implementation time, is very difficult to implement and the benefit of nested virtualization is questionable.

in reply to:  7 comment:8 by Johan Ryberg, 12 years ago

Last edited 8 years ago by Michael Thayer (previous) (diff)

comment:13 by Frank Mehnert, 11 years ago

Description: modified (diff)

I know that other virtualization products support nested virtualization. Even with VirtualBox it is possible to execute VirtualBox without VT-x/AMD-V as a guest of VirtualBox with VT-x/AMD-V enabled. But apart from that, implementing full virtualization is too much effort for too little benefit.

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