Support for running ESXi as a nested virtualization solution

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information about the support for running ESXi as a nested virtualization solution.

Environment

VMware Workstation 

VMware vSphere ESXi
VMware Fusion
VMware Player

Resolution

Broadcom does not support running nested hypervisors within a virtual machine on VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion with the exception of the following limited scenarios where Hyper-V is used in conjunction with Microsoft Windows Client and Windows Server guest operating systems:

• Enabling Virtualization Based Security (VBS). For more information, see Virtualization Based Security
• Enabling Microsoft Defender Application Guard.
• Installation of Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2).
• Installation of Azure Kubernetes Service Edge Essentials, limited to Single Machine clusters.
• Installation of Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows (EFLOW).

For hosts with AMD processors:

• vSphere requires ESXi 7.0 Update 3o, ESXi 8.0 Update 1c or later releases.
• Recommended guest operating systems are Windows 11, Windows Server 2022 or later releases for best performance.
• Minimum guest operating system releases are Windows 10 1809 LTSC (64 bit), Windows Server 2019 with latest patches installed.

The following are additional constraints:

• It is currently not possible to enable above features requiring nested virtualization in a VM on VMware Workstation at the same time Hyper-V is enabled in the host operating system
  • For example, you cannot enable VBS in the host operating system and VBS in a Windows VM on VMware Workstation at the same time. You must choose between one or the other at the present time.
• Apple Mac hosts with Apple silicon processors do not currently provide support for nested virtualization, the above features requiring nested virtualization are not supported in Windows Arm guests running in a VM on Fusion.

Broadcom does not support ESXi as a guest operating system nested within a virtual machine in production environments. This includes VMware ESXi running in a VM on VMware vSphere ESXi, VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion or any other third-party hypervisor solution, with the exception of the following scenarios:

• The vSAN Witness Appliance, which is a nested ESXi installation. For more information, see Deploying a Virtual SAN Witness Appliance

Unsupported configurations are outside Broadcom's Support and Service Level Agreements and if you experience issues, Broadcom is under no obligation to acknowledge, investigate or to provide a resolution. 

ESXi has strict real-time constraints that cannot always be met in a virtualized environment where the hypervisor has to share control of the physical hardware with the host operating system. This is particularly an issue with hosted products such as VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion. Despite these constraints, it is possible to run ESXi as a guest operating system nested in VMware vSphere , VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion. One may have use cases such as learn the about VMware's products. As such, VMware Certified Professionals (VCPs) and other technical professionals are encouraged to use nesting to learn about VMware's products, experiment with configurations, conduct training, show demos, and test configurations.

 

Known working (however still unsupported) configurations for ESXi as a guest operating system nested in a virtual machine are the following

• ESXi 6.0: Requires ESXi 5.5 or later, Workstation 12.0 or later, Fusion 6.0 or later
• ESXi 6.5/6.7: Requires ESXi 6.0 or later, Workstation 14.0 or later, Fusion 10.0 or later
• ESXi 7.0: Requires ESXi 6.7 or later, Workstation 15.5 or later, Fusion 11.5 or later
• ESXi 8.0: Requires ESXi 7.0 or later, Workstation 16.0 or later, Fusion 12.0 or later

Note: Deploying ESXi as a guest operating system nested in a virtual machine may require obtaining additional licenses, please contact a VMware sales representative or distributor for assistance.

Additional Information

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