DaDesktop Support for Nested Virtualization

Nested virtualisation rarely runs perfectly without some fine-tuning. Here we outline which virtualisation tools are compatible—and which perform best—across the different environments inside DaDesktop.

If you need further guidance, don't hesitate to get in touch. Note that certain tools, like Virt Manager, aren't present on every operating system.

More details on using Virt Manager for spinning up multiple sandboxed servers and desktops are also available.
 

		Intel CPU		AMD CPU
		KVM	LXC	KVM	LXC
Virt-Manager	Windows	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Linux	√	√	√	√
VirtualBox	Windows	√	N/A	X④	N/A
	Linux	√	√②③	X④	√②③
VMware Workstation	Windows	√①	N/A	√	N/A
	Linux	√①	X	√	X

 

Testing environment:

Intel CPU used: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2673 v3 at 2.40GHz

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

Windows version: Windows 10

Linux distribution: Ubuntu 20.04

VirtualBox: 6.1.18

VMware Workstation: 16 Pro, v16.1.1

Comments:

①: Guest-level acceleration via Intel VT-x or AMD-V isn't supported. You'll need to clear the "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" checkbox under hardware processors.

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

③: Running VirtualBox within an LXC container clashes with any running KVM virtual machines, so all host KVM instances must be stopped beforehand.

④: We observed a soft lockup systemd-udevd error, resulting in sluggish performance or freezes.