DaDesktop Nested Virtualization Compatibility

Getting nested virtualisation running smoothly can be a bit of a challenge at the best of times. Here’s our rundown of which virtualisation tools work, or work best, in each setup within DaDesktop.

Feel free to reach out if you’ve got any questions. Some tools, like Virt Manager, aren’t available on every OS.

You can find more details about using Virt Manager to spin up multiple sandboxed servers and/or desktops.

		Intel CPU		AMD CPU
		KVM	LXC	KVM	LXC
Virt-Manager	Windows	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Linux	√	√	√	√
VirtualBox	Windows	√	N/A	X③	N/A
	Linux	√	√①②	X③	√①②
VMware Workstation	Windows	√①	N/A	√	N/A
	Linux	√①	X	√	X

Test environment:

Intel CPU Model: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2673 v3 @ 2.40GHz

AMD CPU Model: AMD EPYC 7502P 32-Core Processor

Window: Windows 10

Linux: Ubuntu 20.04

Virtualbox: 6.1.18

VMware Workstation: 16 Pro, v16.1.1

Comments:

①: Intel VT-X & AMD virtualisation acceleration in the guest isn’t supported. You’ll need to untick the "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" checkbox in hardware-processors.

②: The VirtualBox version on the guest must match the VirtualBox DKMS version on the host.

③: Running VirtualBox inside an LXC container clashes with running KVM VMs, so you’ll have to stop all KVM instances on the host first.

④: Saw a soft lockup systemd-udevd error—sluggish and unresponsive.